This is How I Remember My Father
Oct. 1st, 2004 10:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalI wrote the following piece for Dad's funeral service, and it was read by the minister (I didn't trust myself to get though it without choking up on either grief or stage fright.) People attending the service seemed to like it, so I'm reproducing it here.
I remember him when I was six years old, cutting my sandwiches into squares, and drawing doves in the corners of the newspaper.
I remember being able to say, "My Dad was a spy in World War 2!" when my kindergarten teacher asked what ours parents did for a living.
I remember him taking me to the Air & Space Museum for the first time, and for a ride up and down all six stops on the Metro's new Red Line.
I remember sitting in the Schick & Pepe real estate office when I was eight or ten, pounding on the keys of the office teletype, while Dad sold real estate after he retired.
I remember him letting me talk him into getting our very first home computer, an Atari 800. I played games on it and used it to type up my school essays. Dad used it to create his very own spreadsheets and charts showing the house's electrical and gas bills.
I remember him patiently, very patiently trying to drill Spanish into me so I could pass and graduate high school, even though he could see how it bored and frustrated me to tears.
I remember him teaching me how to drive on the back roads of the Lands End trailer park, and not getting angry with me when I managed to drive the LTD into a ditch.
I remember him being so proud of me, after graduating high school, then college.
I remember seeing him in a hospital bed for the first time, on my sixteenth birthday, after a minor heart attack. It was the first time I realized that my father was mortal.
I remember his surprise when I described a shipwreck in a book I'd just read, and the discovery that had he not been transferred into the OSS and sent to Corsica, he could have been on that ship, and lost like many of the men he'd trained with in the icy waters of the English Channel in the winter of 1944.
I remember the smile on his face, the first time he held my son Thomas in his arms.
I remember in his later years, finally opening up about his life, and talking about all the things he'd done in his younger days. He hadn't spoken of them before, not because he was ashamed in any way, I think, but because he simply didn't care to talk about himself. He was true Midwesterner, soft-spoken and modest.
He was my father, and I will always remember him.
I remember him when I was six years old, cutting my sandwiches into squares, and drawing doves in the corners of the newspaper.
I remember being able to say, "My Dad was a spy in World War 2!" when my kindergarten teacher asked what ours parents did for a living.
I remember him taking me to the Air & Space Museum for the first time, and for a ride up and down all six stops on the Metro's new Red Line.
I remember sitting in the Schick & Pepe real estate office when I was eight or ten, pounding on the keys of the office teletype, while Dad sold real estate after he retired.
I remember him letting me talk him into getting our very first home computer, an Atari 800. I played games on it and used it to type up my school essays. Dad used it to create his very own spreadsheets and charts showing the house's electrical and gas bills.
I remember him patiently, very patiently trying to drill Spanish into me so I could pass and graduate high school, even though he could see how it bored and frustrated me to tears.
I remember him teaching me how to drive on the back roads of the Lands End trailer park, and not getting angry with me when I managed to drive the LTD into a ditch.
I remember him being so proud of me, after graduating high school, then college.
I remember seeing him in a hospital bed for the first time, on my sixteenth birthday, after a minor heart attack. It was the first time I realized that my father was mortal.
I remember his surprise when I described a shipwreck in a book I'd just read, and the discovery that had he not been transferred into the OSS and sent to Corsica, he could have been on that ship, and lost like many of the men he'd trained with in the icy waters of the English Channel in the winter of 1944.
I remember the smile on his face, the first time he held my son Thomas in his arms.
I remember in his later years, finally opening up about his life, and talking about all the things he'd done in his younger days. He hadn't spoken of them before, not because he was ashamed in any way, I think, but because he simply didn't care to talk about himself. He was true Midwesterner, soft-spoken and modest.
He was my father, and I will always remember him.
