Happy Fathers Day

I've been away from home now for about... 8 years? It's been great in many ways but the obvious consequence is that I see very little of my family. I've almost completely missed my two little nephews growing up, and have not had the constant interaction that the rest of my family has. Everyone has always spent a lot of time at Mom and Dad's house just hanging out. Since the end of January it's become Mom's house (that Dad rebuilt). All of a sudden everything shifted, and I was with everyone and all the extended family as well, minus one.

Yesterday, after reading a section from Dad's favourite book (Thomas a Kempis' The Immitation of Christ), I happened to spend a little time reflecting on Dad's life and the example he offered, not at all realizing that it was fathers day. I'm not even sure it was fathers day in this part of the world or not, but either way, what better time to remember. What follows is what I prepared and read at the funeral.


"I have had, I'm sure many of you know, a pretty good life, all in all. A fantastic and close-knit family. Enough friends to see me through. Never known poverty. I've seen a few places and done a few things.

From this position, there are many things about my Dad that I could talk about. All the good memories: regular games of catch and the endless baseball games over the yeras. The ice rink he turned our backyard into every winter. Helping me purchase my first car and learning to drive a manual on the way home from picking up that first car. The games of pool at the forks. Back when few people were as concerned about the food, we used to go to Burger Kind or McDonalds on a Saturday morning or afternoon and just hang out. All good memories.

I could talk about what a great father my Dad was. The secret formula he had for raising us was so sublte that you only realized that you were being parented upon reflection, years later. He had endless patiance. We had what seems like comlete freedom when we were growing up, and he had as much trust in us that needs to accompany such freedom (I only just found out that he endured all those years of the loud punk/hardcore/metal that poured fourth out of my room during high school without saying a word to me, but actually couldn't stand it - even I can only stand it in small doses now). He was increditly selfless, and was always available to help with whatever needed helping - not just for us, but for anyone that asked and even those who didn't.

But I'm not going to talk about these things.

I need to talk about the two things that I see as his greatest strengths: Innate positivity and shameless enthusiasm (I know you pedants are thinking that's two, but, just let it go), and enduring courage. They will stay with me forever as something to aspire to, and they will stay with me exactly because they are what I have found to be curiously lacking in myself.

Somehow, in the midst of having such a role model, I have existed as a pessimist. I am guarded and protective against being vulnerable and ultimately, failure, which leads me to avoid taking big chances. I've done fine in spite of it which has made it easy to excuse, yet all the while knowing it only keeps one tethered to mediocrity.

This has been on my mind for a while now. I actually meant to talk with him about this as recently as last week. The sadly ironic thing is that only two days before I got the news I was having a chat with God about this and wondered if maybe there could be something that would jolt me out of this tendancy. My tendancy caught wind of this and I paused for a second, adding, "but nothing too severe, yeah?". I'm not linking these things causally, of course, but nevertheless, it's been an eye opener.

So here all of us have been left with this legacy of a fearlessly positive, and positively courageous person. Someone who would host his guests to within an inch of their lives. Your glass would be never be empty, and when noting that your glass was only somewhere around half full he would emerge from the kitchen with a refill mid-way through a conversation. Having missed most of the details and the context of what was being said, he would stil be engaged and smiling and playing along like it was the funniest or most interesting thing he had heard all week. He would ask you about bits of your life you just knew weren't important to him personally, but there were important to you. He would never be a burden to anyone, to the frustration and consternation of many. That one I did pick up from him, but somehow it's not as cute. He once drove himself to the hospital in the middle of the night with what he thought may have been a possible heart attack and no one found out about it until the morning. We can laugh about that one because he was fine in the end, but it wasn't funny then. Whether or not you found his puns painful or his one liners repetitive and predictable, or his attempt in the last few years to use words like "stoked" embarassing (which is entirely because he's my Dad), you ended up thinking him helplessly endearing. If he was nothing else he was unwaveringly positive and inherently optimistic, which he clearly got from his mother. I don't think the apple even fell from that tree, although I cannot  comment on whether she's ever considered herself to be "stoked".

He was something else though. He was also courageous, and I know that was a result of his faith in God. He would without fail and for as long as I've been alive, spend the wee hours of the morning in his favourite chair with a Bible in his lap. Because of this genuine faith, he took chances, and not inconsequential ones. There were numerous projects and businesses over the years that he tried to get off the ground, and when they didn't, he would always find his feet, and try again. He was up for anything, and used his time wisely, preferring a book to the TV, and up early regardless of when bed time was. Like his renos, he always put everything into what he was doing and never left anything unfinished.

He must have had at least another decade in him, maybe two, I say to myself. But then, as cheasy as this sounds, I think he lived more life than many of us ever will. His cup was full. His sky was blue. The most mundane and dreary experience always fabulous. I remember the first time they visited Myra and I in England, we stopped at this greasy little pub on the way to the train station to get a quick and cheap breafast. We all had the full English for £3 each, so you can imagine the quality and therefore the suspicion with which the waiter listened to the praise that Dad heaped on the food. What must the waiter have then thought about Canadian food? And of course, he knew they were from Canada because Dad told him that too. He squeezed every last lusty drop of vitality out of every experience, and it wasn't by accident. This was the world he chose and cultivated for himself. Plate talks about the balanced soul being equal parts wisdom, courage, and desire or volition, and I think Dad's soul was finely tuned.

So perhaps that's why he quietly moved on in the stillness of his favourite time of day, before anyone had awaken, in his own home that he had completely reinvented: having lived enough life for one vessel.

Or, perhaps heaven had a few renos that had been put off for long enough. I think that the house prepared for him there is eternally twenty years outdated and across the street from a Home Depot. The drywall sheets will be that much lighter and his tools a brighter shade of yellow.

Whatever the reason, when I grow up, I want to be just like my Dad."