I am not sure how I will fare through these next few moments, but should I struggle please do not feel discomfort for me,  rather embrace it and feel the ease of this honest moment for what it is. 

I come from a long line of men and women who feel deeply, love truly, and should that stream surface today, as it often did with my dad, I ask you to bear with me, I will make it through.

Dad could be many things, he could look as comfortable in a Tux as he could his favorite yellow sweatshirt, but given the choice, he would always prefer a small informal gathering of family and friends and so that is what we have here today. 

I read somewhere, that what we do here today is “the last kind act that man may do for man, to tell his virtues and to lay with tenderness and tears his ashes in the sacred place of rest.” 

If that is true, then I know before I begin that I will fail here today, there are no words or time to express, what this man was to me, our family, to all of those who were touched by his smile. 

My brother shared with me shortly after Dad’s passing that it is not just our Dad we have lost but a Boss of 30+ years, a Neighbor of 15, and a Best Friend for life. 

The words “lost” and “passing” have been used often in these last few days and it has caused me to think upon a line in one of my songs that suggests there is no “Good in Goodbye”… as too often is the case, I think I was wrong. 

There is good in goodbye… We are surrounded today by that good, it is in the loving eyes and touch of his wife who showed me from my first memory up until Dad’s last breathe what it meant to love unconditionally, what is meant to live a life with someone who after 57 years still made you thrill when they walked in the room.

That good is in the eyes and smiles of his children and grandchildren and in the hundreds of stories that could fill countless meals and evening with laughter. 

Dad loved to laugh and we have heard that laughter echo in each of us even in the midst of his passing. 

No one made him laugh more than the one who stood by his side and moms through those final years.  Shad, no father could ask for a better caregiver. I know Dad would have been proud to see his family come together, as we always do, to love and hold each other through these hard times.  And hard times they were.

I can find no justice or purpose in his suffering, but I will not waste a single moment of thought on what was but a small part of an extraordinary life.  Dad’s breaths of joy and happiness, far outnumber those made in moments of struggle, and so it is there in those happy moments, I will choose to find my peace. 

Dad was a collector of sayings, he loved them and filled little pads with them, as well as with his own thoughts and of course his famous “To-Do” lists… actually, his To-Do lists usually required a custom made velcro leather holder, but that’s an entirely different story.  One of the sayings he collected he kept under the glass of his desk and in typical Dad fashion, he made a copy for mom to post beside her desk for the times when she might question the pain… I think it spoke to Dad’s choice to see the beauty in this weaving we call life, in spite of the occasional dark threads…

It read…

My life is but a weaving
Between my God and me.
I cannot choose the colors
He weaveth steadily.
Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow;
And I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper
And I the underside.
Not ’til the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Will God unroll the canvas
And reveal the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful
In the weaver’s skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned

There is no darker thread than his passing, and yet to me, Dad has neither passed nor been lost to us… I see him in my son, in his garden, and though it feels emptier, I still see him in his workshop, his home, and his office. 

It had become a habit of mine to stop by his office after a days work and say “I’m heading home Chief, is there anything you need?”  He always had a warm smile for me when he looked up… and somehow, without a word, that smile would say “thank you, I’m proud of you, and did you finish the latest form I gave you?” 

I will miss that smile, that presence, the warmth of his hands on my shoulders, the long discussions about books and philosophy, and I will forever be indebted to him for his blood that ran through my instrument and gave me music to share. 

To each of us, he gave a gift of himself… six children, all very different but bound by the lesson and the example he lived every day, we would sometimes jokingly call him the “white horse” because he was always championing peace among us all… Dad taught us that differences do not equal distance. 

Although he seems to be at a great physical distance from us now, he is forever, and all the more, close to us in our hearts.  While I would give almost anything to walk with him down the “Animal Road” one more time, and listen to him teach me, to know each of the trees by their leaves, I will let him go… not from my heart but from my presence.  It is a wound that will not heal with time, but a scar I gladly bear, and I will honor him by finding joy and laughter in this new normal.

Dad, picked up a camera long before I was born and the slides and the whir of the family projector still thrills me, it is from him that I found a love for capturing the beauty of a Life in Random Order and I can thank of no way to honor him more than to share those images now.

After the video Mom has requested we play one final song… a song I wrote years ago fittingly called the Last Song. After it plays the family will rise and escort Dad to the Hillside, we ask that you remain seated until the family and grandkids have exited… then please join us for the final Toll Ceremony.  The bell outside was part of the original home place we all shared back in Illinios, it was rung in times of emergency and celebration.  Today it will ring one last time for Dad.  The family will escort Dad up the Hill while you await our return on the front porch and driveway area. 

If a life is measured by the smiles it creates, then you will see his was an extradonary life.