It was 22 years ago today, on August 20, 1988, that my father passed away. It was a Saturday morning, and the word came from his wife at about 7am (my parents divorced in 1980, and he remarried in 1987). The entire sequence of events that followed, right up to the end of the funeral two days later, are as clear in my mind today as they were when they happened. Those memories were actually helpful to me when my son passed away in June; having been through the experience of making funeral preparations back then made it much less confusing when the time came to make Stephen’s arrangements.
For the first few years after Dad died, I would visit his grave on this day. I was always by myself when I visited…that was not because I wanted to be alone; it just seemed to work out that way. He had been in the Army when he was younger, and the government provided a metal grave marker that sits flush with the ground; I would usually make sure nothing was growing over it, then stand there silently for some time. Some years, I would talk to him as though he was there listening patiently; somehow, I felt he was.
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Photo courtesy of Randy Sheppard
I got married in 1993, and the effort of raising a family took me away from visiting his grave regularly; then finally in 2000 I moved out of the state altogether, making any kind of simple visit impossible. I have been back to visit relatives several times since then, usually around holidays or while on business trips, but I never seemed to have enough time to pay Dad a visit.
When I stop to think about all of the changes in my life since that day, it boggles my mind – getting married and raising three children, moving 1,000 miles away from where I was raised and starting over in a new town, watching the kids grow into teenagers, sending my first one off to college, and recently losing my son. I have reached the pinnacles of success and the depths of despair, and had many accomplishments in between that were both good and bad; I wonder, though, how many of those might have been different had I been able to seek Dad’s counsel. There were countless times I wanted to talk with him about what I was doing and where I was going, and ask for his advice on so many difficult decisions, but I could not; instead, I had to figure things out on my own. I have tried to reason with myself, asking “what would Dad have done in this situation?†but it is simply not the same as talking to a living, breathing person.
If he were alive today Dad would be 79 years old, but I would be willing to bet his mind would still be as sharp as it ever was. He was a big baseball fan, and would watch or listen to every Atlanta Braves game each season and could rattle off stats about all of the players; today, he would probably still be trying to follow them, even though their games are rarely televised any more. He and my son Stephen would have gotten along great because Steve was also a big baseball fan, having played in Little League and also having followed the Braves as much as he could. I am certain they are both in Heaven now, swapping stories about their favorite players and games. They might even be taking turns hitting some balls around; both of them liked to do that, oddly enough. I’m sure I’ll have a lot of catching up to do with both of them when I get there!
And so, this is my salute to you, Dad. May you always rest in peace.
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