Mom but mostly Dad

Mom has been a widow since 1982. That year was when she lost the love of her life to cancer and I lost my dad. I was 32 with a wonderful wife and two boys four and two and pastor of an amazing church that knew how to love and minister to their pastor. The boys don't remember their Grandad, but I do.

I would tell the guys stories as they grew up about my dad, about growing up in a service station, about my love of cars that grew out of that, and about the quirky things that happened in a place that sold gas and offered service with each purchase no matter how small.

Dad was a pretty amazing person. He served in the U.S. Marines in the South Pacific, was awarded a Purple Heart, and came back home to marry and raise a family. He birthed three boys and he was the youngest of two boys. Something in our family about boys and the women who must suffer raising them.

After a stint in the oil field, Dad went to work for himself in a service station and that is where we were raised. There are times when I think about my experiences and laugh. There are other times when I get just a little sad. Life played out before my eyes in ways that I was often too young to understand. With years came understanding and a quiet appreciation grew for my dad.

I noticed that widows trusted him. I noticed that Dad would go the extra mile to make something right with a customer. Even if the customer was difficult and belligerent, he would do what he could to make things right--then he would tell them never to come back to his station! I like that part of his pluck. I once watched him cold-cock a man who took a swing at him after this man caused one of his employees to get burned. I decided then, I would not pick a fight with the "old man." Dad was generous and supportive of his children and did his best to teach us how to be men of integrity and faith. And at work, he was a hard task master. He wanted from his children a hard day's work for paltry pay. But years later that paltry pay would pay rich dividends.

Dad was diagnosed with cancer around 1980. Then what followed was a stream of radiation, surgery, more surgery, a promised respite of cure, and then a vicious return of the cancer that chemo could not touch. Hospice was a Divine gift. Long before anyone was sold on the idea, Midland had a volunteer program. Those were the days of no government money or interference. The people were great and Dad stayed home until it became obvious we needed him in the hospital.

Cancer is a dark, mean disease. It plays with your body, it plays with your mind, it plays with your emotions, and for the person and the family it is an endless roller coaster ride to who knows where. Are we going to beat this? Are we going to lose?

For many cancer patients, it is a slow, painful, way to die. That is what it was for Dad. That is what it was for all of us: a slow, painful, death that would leave a gaping hole in our hearts for years.

I think that is when I decided for sure that what mattered most is not how long one lived but how well one lived. The decisions to put that reality into practice took several years. It took time to slow the pace of ministry where I had time to pick up the boys from school and take them for a soda. It took time to realize that every emergency was not a crisis and most emergencies had been weeks in the making. That is when I began to sift what made my father the man he was and desire in my heart to be a man like him.

I am a year older than my father was when the cancer finally won. I think about that from time to time and wonder if I am the man now my father was when he died?