I’ve never known anyone who lived life more fully than my Dad. He worked hard. He played hard. And he served tirelessly.
All these activities were interweaved in a life that was beautifully integrated. He had fun when he worked. He exerted great energy in his play. And those with whom he served in the Army Air Corps, on local and regional school boards for 33 years, as a church leader and as a police volunteer marveled at his boundless sense of humor and energy.
After he was forced off the farm by his rheumatoid arthritis, he still couldn’t stop working. While most people would have been content to just attend meetings while serving on the Educational Service District’s board of directors, for example, Dad had to pitch in and help as much as he could with office renovations.
Dad rarely watched TV or participated in any other kind of “artificial” entertainment. He was too busy living life.
To Dad everything in life was fun. He loved getting up early in the morning to watch the sun rise as he baled hay, “bucking bales” under the hot sun, or feeding the cattle as the sun set.
From before sunrise until well after dark, you could hear Dad whistling as he worked.
However, there was never so much work that he couldn’t intermix some fun: a competition with the hired men to see who could carry the most railroad ties, an impromptu rodeo to see who could ride one of our steers the longest, a dare to use an irrigation pipe to pole-vault the canal, a quick skinny dip in the pond, or a timed race on a motorbike to see who could lap the house the fastest.
And we always had “wild” pets to play with, beginning with badger cubs he rescued when their mother was run over on the highway.
For Dad everything was also spiritual. “Can you believe how that little plant is growing up under that cement and just pushing it out of the way?” he would ask one of his children. “Can you believe how God can give it that kind of power?” Or, “Look at that beautiful sunset God made for us today.”
Dad never preached a sermon. His life was his sermon.
And strangers, for Dad, were just friends he hadn’t yet met. Not only would he strike up a conversation with anyone anytime anywhere, he would tease or even play pranks on people he didn’t know. They, too, deserved a good laugh.
Dad’s service to others was spontaneous. I remember him picking up hitchhikers – despite warning us never to do so. One I remember was a drunk, very overweight woman who smelled as if she had not bathed in days. She was walking along the road, so Dad stopped and had us kids scrunch over to one side in the back seat so we could take the woman into town – with the windows rolled down.
Similarly, it was difficult for Dad to pass an auto accident without stopping to see what he could do to help.
And many a hired hand or neighborhood kid from a dysfunctional or fatherless family “adopted” Dad as their father figure, too. The first was not much younger than Dad, an heir to the Chase Manhattan fortune, who loved to work with Dad on the farm -- and learned to love our Dad as his own.
Another city kid worked on our farm until Dad could no longer afford the mistakes he was making. But by then the bond had been forged, so Dad let him live with us as part of our family while he worked for someone else.
For all members of Dad’s “family” – including all of his friends, co-workers, hired men, church members, local business owners, etc. – Dad was someone everyone could count on. Space could not contain all the times he rescued each of us from some predicament.
Dad died this week. After a long life of serving others, Dad felt bad at the end at needing his family and care-givers to do essentially everything for him.
But he continued giving as best he could – ever trying to make a joke of his difficult situation, always thanking and encouraging his children and grandchildren, always sharing as much positive energy as he could muster for anyone who might visit.
All of my life I have pursued that biblical challenge to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind … (and) thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:37-40). Yet I realize that what I do at times with great effort and out of a sense of duty, Dad did naturally, without burden of responsibility.
While I am a weak reflection of my Dad, his bright reflection of our Heavenly Father helps me understand what the Scriptures mean when they say “I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them” (Hebrews 10:16).
I will never be as good as Dad, but the sermon he taught by example could never be erased from my heart.