A Father’s Legacy

Part 3 (Conclusion)

 

One year earlier:

September 27, 2005

 

It seemed strange to be dialing the new digits. For over fifty years, and my entire life up to this point, the home phone number for my parents had not changed—until recently, when my brothers and I helped Mom and Dad move into an assisted-living center. Now they had a different number. It was odd not to be entering the ever-so-familiar one, the one I had grown up with, the one that was for so long a part of each of our lives.

    Dad answered on the third ring. “Hello.”

    Isn’t it intriguing that, besides having unique fingerprints and other features, our voices are each different as well?

    “Hi, Dad. Happy anniversary.”

    And isn’t it remarkable the extent to which a person’s voice, particularly that of a loved one, touches our lives?

    “Thank you. Your mother isn’t here. She’s …” There was a pause. Dad had grown frail, and now, at age eighty-eight, conversing required some effort. “… at Bible Study, so …” Another pause. “I’ll tell her when she comes in.”

    Although Dad’s voice had weakened as his strength and stamina had declined over the years, it was still the familiar sound that had been in my life since my earliest memories.

    “All right. And I hope you’re having a wonderful day.”

    Learning to ride a bicycle. Working in our garden. Weekend walks in the woods. The voice had been there.

    “The weather’s nice. Just like it was … sixty-four years ago.”

     The reference was to September 27, 1941, the day Mom and Dad were married.

    “It’s beautiful here, too.” I tried to imagine the view out the window there in Wisconsin, testing my memory of the climate. “You’ve got, what, sunshine and…seventy degrees?”

    “I don’t know what we have for temperature … but the sun is shining.”

    Shoveling snow together. Ice fishing. Supper every night at five o’clock. So many memories of home and growing up, so many of which included the voice on the other end of the line.

    “That sounds good. And Mom’s at Bible Study. Well, any advice for us”—I tried to think of a fitting term—“young whippersnappers who have only been married for twenty-four years?”

    As a practical, down-to-earth person, Dad had been, through the years, an ever reliable source of guidance and reason. Perhaps he had a gem to pass along this special day, as well.

    “No.”  

    We spoke then about Robin, who was training with the Army, at Fort Benning, Georgia. Robin had fractured his wrist, Marcy and I had recently learned. Dad asked about, and we discussed, the circumstances of the injury.

    Then we returned to the occasion at hand—Mom and Dad’s wedding anniversary. I was still hoping for some sage words.

    “So you don’t have any advice for us younger group? You have sixty-four years to draw from. Give us a word of wisdom.”

    We often spend a lot of time interacting, with family, friends, and acquaintances, yet devote very little of it sharing what we have learned about that which is most meaningful in our lives. Sometimes, though, there are moments that surpass the everyday interaction. This became one of them.

    “We still don’t have all the answers.”

    Dad’s response, though simple and brief, struck me as profound. And it gave me something to work with.

    “So the advice is, hang in there, and keep searching for answers?”

    There is a Scripture verse urging simplicity and integrity in one’s speech—to “let your ‘Yes’ be yes and your ‘No’ be no.” That was Dad.

    “That’s about it.”

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          -End-

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