Dad, Post-Mortem

Good evening, friends. Thank you for the well wishes in the wake of Dad's passing. Special thanks to Bob for house-sitting during the memorial service, and to Wordly, who came to the visitation, much appreciated. Bob also received and placed the food items dropped off by Salem Kitchen. Again, thanks to him.

The memorial service went as I planned it, led off with "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty," which was the opening hymn for both my Mom and Susan's Mom's services. Sarah sang "Amazing Grace," and she and her sister Candice sang "It Is Well with My Soul." I gave the eulogy.

We inurned Dad's ashes in the family plot in Durham. My brothers, a nephew, Susan, and the caregivers were in attendance. I spoke briefly, using the poem that OT posted on the site before Dad died, and some verses from Ecclesiastes (sp?) that Wordly posted, thanks to both. Then we covered the urn ourselves. I buried the note I used for his and Mom's inurnments with him. Then my brothers and I had a beer with our Dad's ashes, pouring a chilled Coors Light over the dirt (we ourselves did not partake, having to drive back to WS).

I am posting the eulogy below, which gives a better impression of Dad than does the bare-bones obituary. Herewith:

Good afternoon, and for myself, and on behalf of my brothers, thank you for joining us to honor and celebrate Dad and his life.

Prayer: Grace, mercy, and peace be unto us from God the Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I thanked you a moment ago, and this is indeed a time to give thanks, thanks for a life well-lived, of devoted marriage, fatherhood, friendship, industry, and service. It is also a time to give thanks for and to the host of angels who have been a part of my family’s life. We’ll start with 3 angels who tended Dad and Mom over the last two years of increasingly intensive care. Sandra, Sarah, and Teresa, along with your time and effort, you put hearts, soul, and love into their care. And my family’s thanks are profound and lasting.

And there are many other angels. After I moved back from CA, 9 years ago, I spent my early evenings with Mom and Dad before moving on to my own activities. We spoke often of friends and family who have brightened our lives, particularly the outpouring of support during family crises, especially when Dad had his near-fatal traffic accident, when I was in high school. Friends and family rushed to help after the wreck, and remained steadfast during Dad’s 6-month recovery. Those angels are too numerous to name now, but for my parents, my brothers, and myself, I thank those still with us, and honor those who have preceded my parents. Thank you. (Actually, I reversed myself, and named the angels, ensuring that I named all the ones in attendance).

Dad did not start his life in crisis, to be sure. He was born into anything but crisis, son of a very successful businessman. Granddaddy owned sugar cane plantations and sugar mills in various places in the Caribbean, with his base in Puerto Rico, and a pied a terre here in Winston-Salem. When they were in town here, Grandmother would enjoy morning coffee with Mrs. RJ Reynolds, who lived across the street. Dad and his older sister Marion wanted for nothing. Dad started learning to drive at the ripe old age of 8, at the wheel of a Rolls Royce.

The splendid opulence didn’t last, however. In the early ‘30s, a hurricane leveled Granddaddy’s holdings in the Caribbean. He borrowed a huge sum from banker Andrew Mellon and rebuilt. Another hurricane came along. This one blew Granddaddy out of business and blew the family up to North Carolina. He could not afford to rebuild as the Depression raged, so he paid off the Mellon Bank and retired to a hunting lodge near Morehead City and Atlantic Beach, that he shared with his brother Bailey. Dad started high school in reduced circumstances, though comparatively well off compared to other Carteret County residents. He appears to have enjoyed high school, playing on the basketball team, and making sufficient grades to attend UNC, where he listed his major as Pre-Law.

That was as close as Dad would come to being an attorney. He graduated in 1942. The Depression had long since given way to World War 2. Dad was commissioned as an officer in the US Coast Guard, which had been subsumed into the Navy for the duration of the war. He served on a small coastal patrol boat for a time, then shipped out on as an officer on a larger anti-submarine vessel named the USS Casper. The ship’s mission was to stay on station about 1500 miles west of San Francisco, watching for enemy submarines, sending weather reports, and assisting downed aircrew.

Mom liked to compare her wartime experiences with Dad’s, noting she saw more combat than Dad, albeit as a teen-aged civilian. She and her mother were on a ship leaving the Mediterranean that was hit by a bomb. The USS Casper’s combat consisted of one of its sailors dispatching a drifting naval mine with a rifle shot. Nonetheless, we owe thanks to Dad and millions of other veterans for their service, and thanks to God that the bomb that hit Mom’s transport was a dud.

Dad’s service on the Casper started what would be a hallmark of his employment in later years, travel to distant places. At war’s end, the ship sailed to Ecuador to allow that country’s navy to test drive it, so to speak. Ultimately, the ship went to Ecuador for good, and Dad went home to North Carolina, leaving the Coast Guard after 4 years’ service.

Dad and Mom began their courtship a couple of years after that. Mom reported that he requested her company on an outing 4 months in the future. She agreed, then did not hear from him again for the 4 months. She assumed he had forgotten the engagement, only to have him show up at the appointed hour. Apparently, it was worth the wait, as their courtship blossomed. He proposed and she accepted. Now, Dad needed to introduce her to his mother. This presented a problem.

Granddaddy had died some months before, and Grandmother was staying with her sister Mary in Ottumwa, IA. Times were different in 1949, and travel between NC and IA involved an overnight stay along the way. In those days, an unmarried couple simply didn’t make journeys like that, especially when the bride-to-be’s prospective mother-in-law was of decidedly Victorian upbringing. The solution was simple: instead of presenting his mother with his fiancée’, Dad would present her with his bride. They eloped to York, SC, tied the knot, and then drove to Ottumwa. Family history does not record whether Dad notified his mom of the concluded nuptials prior to arriving in Iowa. I and my brothers joined the family over the next 10 years.

After their marriage, Dad held a number of jobs before starting his own company in the mid 1960’s. A tireless worker, he almost worked himself to death, falling asleep as he drove to a customer in 1966, suffering the accident I mentioned earlier. Another casualty of the crash was Dad’s business, which couldn’t sustain itself during his convalescence. Friends helped shut it down, while relatives and friends helped Mom with the rigors of operating a household that included 4 boys and a varying population of pets.

Out of that wreckage, however, came a new career for Dad. Another angel, Joe Patterson, put in a good word for Dad at Hanes Corporation, and after he recovered, Dad joined the company as an engineer, and rose to senior engineer in fairly quick order. Please note that Dad’s degree was Pre-Law; his engineering degree, so to speak, was self-taught. And he was superlative at it. Hanes needed his services in many of its locations. Over the years, he amassed quite a few frequent flier miles in his travels for the company, going to the Caribbean, Central and South America, where his fluent Spanish served him well, and to China before travel there by Americans was common.

He was gone quite a bit over a number of years, so much that he and a friend he often encountered in the Atlanta airport, Horace Deudney, would refer to it as their office. Mom had to run the household and wrangle her 4 sons in his absence. That sounds like tough duty for her, but the 4:1 odds were actually an even match. As time passed, with fewer sons under roof, she began to accompany him on his trips. That began a pattern that solidified after Dad retired. Where you saw one of my parents, you generally would see the other.

Until their mobility began to fail, you would frequently find Dad and Mom at church. They joined Centenary Methodist before I was born, and both were active in the church until deep in retirement. Dad taught a popular Sunday school class for several years, in which he delivered his thoroughly prepared “gospel according to Moses,” as he put it.

Marriage suited my parents, and it suited them for 61 years until death did them part, with Mom leaving us last year. Once Dad retired, they continued traveling together, going to quite a few countries mostly traveling in Europe. As we know, however, time passes and their mobility declined. Their last trip of any note was a 12-day cruise, on which they let the ship do most of the walking.

After retirement, Dad repaid Mom for the housekeeping she had done while he had been away over the years. He served her breakfast in bed daily, cooked dinner, cleaned the kitchen, and so on. Finally, at my brothers’ urging, I arranged in-home care, letting both parents enjoy a well-deserved rest.

We were glad Dad and Mom had the time to travel and do things together. Over the years, time for that had been scant, as they had both been actively involved in the lives of their sons, far into our adulthood, as a matter of fact. After he retired, Dad frequently traveled to assist in household projects at my brothers’ homes, first actively, and then as time passed, as a consultant. Consultancy didn’t stop just at home projects, though. Economic ebbs and flows, along with marital dissolutions, compelled my brothers and me to seek advice and counsel from Dad.

Note that I did not say Dad bailed us out. No, he would show the way. He expected us to work through our setbacks, particularly those that were self-induced. There was always encouragement and acceptance. And protection. I recall years ago when one of my brothers won a school yard combat with an acquaintance. The opponent’s father, a person of some local prominence, called my brother and rebuked him. Dad overheard the conversation, commandeered the phone, and emphatically informed the irate father that he had addressed my brother at his peril, that Dad reserved discipline for his children for himself and mom only. Loyalty was a standard from which both Mom and Dad never wavered.

Both our parents extended that loyalty past their immediate family, taking our stepchildren as their grandchildren.

We never lost our need for Dad. Some years back, when I was well into my 50s, I embarked on a long and expensive battle to save a cat that I loved from cancer. I basically wore myself and the poor cat out. Dad finally ventured advice, “Son, cat has had all he can take. Doing anymore will be selfish. You know what you must do for cat.” I did it, and it was a mercy for the beloved pet. It was also advice that would serve me well later.

Later, I was offered 2 different jobs at the same time, naturally. They had dissimilar pluses and minuses. I could not make up my mind. I sat down with him, really wanted him to tell me what to do. He didn’t want to do that, but I talked and pushed him a bit. Finally, he said, “Son, we need you closer to home.” One of the jobs was in Greensboro. Good enough. I accepted the one in downtown WS.

Time passed, and both Mom and Dad went into decline. Now, my brothers and I were compelled to make decisions for them, unassisted. In the end, we confronted difficult decisions, as I had some years before, sometimes heart wrenching decisions. But they were the right ones, protective, humane, and compassionate. It was Dad and Mom’s wisdom and strength of character that enabled us to so do.

Over the past couple of years, caring for my parents kept me a bit busy. A number of people have been kind enough to comment favorably on my efforts, for which I thank them. I note that whatever I did was small repayment for all I received from them.

My fiancée Susan’s mother Evelyn died a month ago. Susan and her father honored me by asking me to deliver Evelyn’s eulogy. At the close of the eulogy, I recited the lines from one of Evelyn’s favorite old time hymns, “That Old Ship of Zion.” As Dad held on to life over the past week or so, I recalled the old ship. For some reason, the old ship of Zion reminds me of Dad, so in closing:

I was standing by the banks of a river looking out over life’s troubled seas, when I saw an old ship that was sailing.

Is that the old ship of Zion I see?

Is hull was bent and battered from the storms of life I could see. Waves were rough, but that old ship kept sailing.

Is that that the old ship of Zion I see?

At the stern of the ship was the captain. I could hear as he called out my name.

Get on board the old ship of Zion. It will never pass this way again.

As I step on board I’ll be leaving all my troubles and trials behind. I’ll be safe with Jesus the captain.

Sailing out on the old ship of Zion.

Amen. Thank you.