Before the sun had risen this morning, I lay in bed listening to the first peeps of the day, and I felt my father’s laughter surrounding me. His laugh was like none other. There was a spontaneity and hooping quality to it, which could only come from genuine emotion. One had to know WHAT had sparked this, but he moved so fast in his mind that if one had not caught the moment, it was gone. My mother used to say that my father was a genuine knight of the round table. I was never sure exactly what she meant by this as a variety of images came to mind, but historically, these were the knights during King Arthur’s reign who were dedicated to ensuring peace for a kingdom that had been ravaged by endless wars. I know now that she was right. Dad was humble, and powerfully charismatic at the same time. He cared about humanity, on a vast scale, with an eye on the future, as well as looking straight into the heart of what was in front of him and taking action immediately.
In Dad’s last years, never ceasing to take on challenges in the name of peoples’ suffering and education and the environment and living breathing faith, there was one challenge that had him befuddled. My mother’s passionate love of birds held both of their sometimes reverent, sometime chattering attention in one focused beam. The meadow in front of their northern Michigan home, which stretched for acres down to the lake, was alive with birdlife, and in the wintertime, bird feeders. My father’s first mission of every day was to make sure these feeders were in good shape, full and accessible to the birds, HOWEVER there was another breed of creature that waited with twitching tails and beady eyes, eager to partake, and that was the scurry of squirrels. These beings were the most insidious foes one could imagine. Brilliantly scheming and adept at flying onto birdfeeders, making off with the loot and disappearing with a tch tch tch. I have never seen Dad so focused and frustrated, but he would come in, sit silently down in front of the window, gazing out at the tree where the squirrels lived, swig down a glass of orange juice and LAUGH so loudly that one could hear him across the lake.
I love you, Dad.