The Year I Lost It - The Father

This is Part 3 of 5

Part 1 - The Job
Part 2 - The Boss
Part 4 - The Earring
Part 5 - The Budley
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It was just one week and a few days away from Peter’s (my boss) retirement party. I was wrapped up in guest lists and invitations and caterers and venues and collecting decades of memorabilia and old photos. Life interrupted all that party planning. I was busy gearing up for Peter’s departure from our office when my dad departed this world.

We all knew my father’s days were numbered, but I really didn’t realize that a chuckle over the funny papers would be our last laugh together.

The last time my dad and I were alone together, he was sitting in chair with his narrow little reading glasses low on his nose. He held the newspaper up and was reading the comics out loud to me. We both laughed out loud about one that had something to do with lawyers. The frame was something about one of them suing the pants off the other, the retort then was something about needing to check his briefs.

His pastor, Dr. Young, came to visit about that time. I sat in on their visit together, again not realizing it would also be the last time they would see each other either. My dad was a bit talkative, Dr. Young was very attentive. When Dr. Young got ready to leave, my dad told him that he loved him. I was smiling again, but for a different reason. I knew my dad meant what he was saying. How many men do you know that would tell their pastors that?

Hardly even 24 hours later Dad was gone.

I am so thankful that my dad loved to read a daily newspaper and that he like to share what he read. I’m so grateful that he didn’t just stop at the news articles but also took the reading of the funny papers just as seriously. I will always cherish that last laugh.

I will also cherish the fact that one of the last people he said “I love you” to was his pastor. That meant as much to me as when he actually said it to me. My dad understood the ministry. A lot of people not in the ministry think they understand it, but they don’t. Not really. But my dad did. He knew.

I was left with the funny papers and an “I love you” and a retirement party to get on with. I lost my father; I was losing my mentor and boss. The loss was happening around me, but I felt like I was the one that was lost.

So I go through the motions. I show up for the party. I buy newspapers. I read the comics.

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3:7-11

This is Part 3 of 5

Part 1 - The Job
Part 2 - The Boss
Part 4 - The Earring
Part 5 - The Budley