DEFINING
MOMENTS WITH MY DAD
More than any other reflection I ever write, the one
that follows captures so perfectly for me what an inspiration my dad was. He
was the face of Christ for me, a sacrament for me, someone who mirrored the
Love of God to me, someone whose life always touched me with that Love and
filled my life with Love, so much so that despite the poverty of my early youth
I can only remember happiness.
1.
The
first moment I can ever remember is an incident from my early youth, a defining
moment with my dad that taught me what Christian Faith is, and what Faith was
for him, the real experience of God the Father’s Love in union with Christ. It
is an incident with my Dad that even now can move me to the point of joy, joy
even to the point of tears.
I was about seven years old when my
dad and I had a race. He challenged me – if I thought I could run so fast, why
shouldn’t I try to beat him? We ran around our block. We ran down Spruce
Street, turned left on Park Street, and with another left on Well Street, we
entered the final stretch.
As I ran I would often look back at
my dad, especially toward the end of the race. There was sheer delight in his
face. He beamed with pride over me his son. He was letting me win, but knowing
and seeing so clearly his love for me, I cannot begin to describe the joy
welling up within my heart. I was loved by my father. I was the delight of my
father. When I had won the race my dad picked me up and embraced me, and my joy
in that moment could have conquered any cross, cost, crisis, or challenge.
That incredible moment has taught me
so much over the many, many years that have passed since then – even though as
I recall the moment now, it is as if the race happened yesterday, and I truly
relive not only my father’s love, but his all-important presence over the whole
course of my life.
Only now though do I realize that
there was so much more to that love than I ever saw as a child. Only now do I
realize that my dad’s love mirrored God’s love. Through my dad I always lived
as a child in the loving embrace of God. He was the face of Jesus for me, and
through my dad’s love the outstretched arms of a loving Father have always
reached down to me and held me tight lest like St. Peter I sink in a sea of
storms.
It truly has been that way
throughout my life. He was the face of Christ for me, and for all my family.
Through his love my soul and spirit always found strength, hope, happiness and
joy, because through his love God touched all of us with the healing and
transforming power of His own Love.
A night with my dad at the carnival proved
that to me as much as that beautiful road race moment. That awesome night was
also during those Spruce street years. My brother Paul was in Kindergarten at
the time, and I was in the second grade. The carnival came to town, and it was
literally no more than two blocks away. We could hear the music of the merry-go-round
from our house, and every evening the lights from the rides lit up the sky over
our neighborhood.
I remember that Paul and I begged
our dad to go to the carnival. Truth be told we were beside ourselves with
excitement. Jumping up and down we pleaded with our parents for a night out at
what was for us the “magic kingdom” set up right around the corner.
But dad chose to be a “hard sell”.
He told us that money was tight, and we really couldn’t afford a big night out
for rides, roasted peanuts, popcorn, caramel apples and cotton candy. Looking
back now I realize that he said all this with “smiling eyes”. But what does a
seven year old know about “smiling eyes” or about the eyes being a window to
the soul of someone who loved us.
Still my dad finally relented in the
face of our pleading, and off we went toward the lights and sounds of a child’s
idea of heaven on earth. But we were told only one ride, and only one item to
eat and drink – and there was to be no budging on that!
2.
I remember that for my food item I
got Cotton Candy, and I chose to eat it on the Carrousel. My Dad stood between
my horse and my brother’s, making sure we were safe and strapped in tight as
the horses galloped up and down and all around in a beautiful rhythm with the
music of the Merry-Go-Round.
I
truly was in a “magic kingdom” that night. I hoped and prayed that the Cotton
Candy would last forever and that my one and only ride would never end. Yet
life is not like that – or is it? The ride did start to slow down and I braced
myself for the end of more than just a good time. It was the end of
enchantment, the end of a most magical moment in time. But not really…As the music stopped and the ride came to a halt, my Dad pulled a twenty dollar bill out of his pocket (That was a lot of money in 1955!) and told us that our night at the Carnival was far from over – it was in fact just beginning!
In that great and wonderful moment I’ll never forget the Joy which swept over me. But more than that, I’ll never forget the smile, the happiness, and the love which shone forth from my father’s face. It was a love for me and my brother. Paul and I had everything to do with it. I just knew it and could never doubt it.
To this day the Joy and Love radiating from my father’s face remains a most powerful image and mirror of God the Father’s Love for me. In that awesome sacramental moment with my Dad I could see and feel God’s Love reaching out to me.
How do I know that? I know it because it was so empowering for me and all of my family. Certainly for me my dad’s love was at key moments in my life a communication of Grace. Time and time again his love touched me with the Power of Christ, the Power to persevere, to overcome fear, the power even to walk on water.
As a twelve year old I remember especially how his bedside chats strengthened me and encouraged me to persevere in my dreadful little league career. I had gone “0 for 14” during my first four games. And night after night over the course of these first four games my dad would sit by my bed and talk to me. After our nightly prayer he told me over and over that I could rise to the challenge and that I must never, never quit.
Even now his words during those night time chats have become a “voice” deep within me, a “voice” like the voice of Christ that tells Peter to come to Him, even though it will mean that Peter has to walk on water to do so; or, a “voice” like the Father’s voice in the classic poem called “The Race”:
“Get up!” my father said. “Get up and take your place; You were not meant for failure here. Get up and win the race.
‘With all your will get up!” my father said, “You haven’t lost at all. For winning is no more than this: to rise each time you fall.”
3.
And when times seem dark and hard and difficult to face, the memory of my father’s voice helps me in my race.
For all of life is like a race, with ups and downs and all. And all you have to do to win is rise each time you fall.
“Quit! Give up, you’re beaten!” The world still shouts in my face. But then I hear my father’s voice from deep within: “Get up and win the race!”
And way back in my 12th year, that was the “voice” that now echoed within me as I came up to the plate in my fifth little league game. His message to me then and always was that with God’s help I could rise to the challenge, overcome all fear, and if I never, never quit, one day I would put a ball beyond the wall.
And in that fifth game that is exactly what I did. I put a ball over the wall on a bounce – a ground rule double. As I rounded first, racing to second, all I remember is dad calling out from the stands for the whole world to hear: “That’s a boy, Dougie!”
He did that after my high school graduation speech too. He stood up before a crown of easily a few thousand people at Central Catholic’s gym, and yelled those words again: “That a boy, Dougie!” Now looking back, I see so clearly how his love and presence even that graduation night empowered me to speak without fear before thousands, to walk on water if you will. Only now looking back do I realize how much his love and presence was a sacrament in my life, a source of Grace in my life, a source of the Life of God and the Power of Christ.
When I see how fearlessly he could “shout out loud” his love for me and our family I stand in awe at how brave and courageous my dad truly was. Yet could we expect anything less from someone who stormed Omaha Beach on the shores of Normandy? Long before his children knew him he was someone who understand what courage was, and someone who embraced courage in the cause of his country and his God.
As for courage in the cause of Christ, never have I known anyone who has witnessed more boldly for God than my dad. He not only pointed all of us toward Heaven, but by his word and example he showed us the Way, the Truth, and Life: Jesus!
With that kind of spiritual direction and moral compass my dad guided me ever since my high school years. Again I remember a bedside chat at a crisis moment in my life. It was the summer before the start of college, and I was troubled about whether I should go on to college or become a priest. And could I please God if I didn’t become a priest.
It was the wisdom of my father once more that guided me, and as was so often the case his words, or if you will, his “voice” in that defining moment were like a Light in the darkness and turmoil of that time in my life. His words: “The only thing that matters in life is that you go to Heaven, and you do that by following Christ and living in the Spirit of His Love.”
4.
His words were a word from God that night. How do I know that? I was healed that night of guilt, anxiety, and fear by words from my father. They were words that communicated Grace, Spirit, strength and peace to my troubled soul. But more than that, I could feel the love of Christ reaching out and embracing me through my father’s words and through my father’s love. My father mirrored to me not a God who wanted to terrify me and fill me with fear, but a God Who was my loving Father, a God who wanted me to draw close, sit by my bedside, and live in his loving embrace.
Really, to his dying breath, my dad’s life and example bore powerful witness to how all-important his message to me and to all of us truly was: “The only thing that matters is that you go to Heaven, and do that by following Christ and living in the Spirit of His Love.”
So now, as my sister said on the morning of May 28th, my dad is gone – but not simply gone, rather “gone on”, gone on to Heaven. He has done what he told all of us it is most important to do with this life: “Go to Heaven!”
For my dad, the holy man that he was, this life was a preparation for the Life to come, and death was the portal, the gateway to that Life. My dad would say with St. Francis that “…it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.” For my dad life is changed and transformed at death, not taken away. My dad has only left the womb of time, gone on from here to Eternity.
So my father passed on to the
Lord Jesus at 1:00 AM on Tuesday morning, the 28th of May, 2013. If
ever I have known a Saint, it was him. Jesus, Mary, Joseph, St. Michael and all
the Saints welcomed my dad with Joy. Like Simba lifted up on Pride Rock in
“Lion King”, the Father of us all lifted up my dad, now His new Risen Son
transformed in Christ. God the Father lifted up my dad before the whole
Heavenly Court.
As He did so the Seraphim and
Cherubim and all the hosts of Heaven rejoiced. Angelic choirs burst forth in
song with the communion of Saints, singing Alleluia to the Lord, and shouting
praise to God for the Grace of my father’s life, a life that so deeply and
courageously honored Jesus His Son.
