Reflections on my Dad: Don't take life too seriously

My dad recently passed away. And it’s only now that I’m finally learning the lessons from his life. Whether he or I knew it at the time, my dad was teaching me life lessons.

I am up to the third life lesson. The first two were, 'actions speak louder than words and the importance of self sacrifice.'

 Life lesson # 3 is: don’t take life too seriously:

I learned from my Dad not to take life too seriously: My dad was born in Brooklyn, New York, during the great depression; a time of devastating poverty, joblessness and outright destitution.

Rising out of this human calamity, was a belief that worldly possessions are fleeting, and life is indifferent to ones survival. 

It was from this background, that the conviction ‘not to take life too seriously,’ became embedded into the culture of that day. Why? Because you never knew when life as you knew it, would come crashing down.

My dad’s attitude towards life reflected author Fredrick Buechner’s admonition: “here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.”

As a boy, I saw my dad as physically strong presence. And to witness his decline, reminded me how fragile life is. Yet my dad’s determination and attitude towards his ‘life circumstance,’ kept him from despair.       

During the last few years, I observed the slow deterioration of my dad’s health until he became wheelchair bound. I asked him ‘do you ever miss doing things you used to do?” And he said to me, “I don’t worry about that son, there are people in this world worse off than me.”

In the months leading up to his passing, he was hospitalized with severe pneumonia and he could barely catch a breath to speak to the Emergency intake nurse who asked him to rate his health on a scale of 1 to 10: 1 being poor and 10 being good; he told her it’s a 9, ‘my health is ‘good.’

We all thought dad was in denial, but he was very much aware of his condition, he would not allow sickness and pending death to dictate his attitude towards ‘the cards’ life had dealt him.  

He was living out of the principle 'don’t take life too seriously;' in spite of what life had handed him, he left this earth on his own terms.

When death comes knocking

My dad is not doing well. He is in the last stages of a disease that will take him soon. It is becoming clearer to me, how brief our life on this earth is. Life is like the fog; it envelopes us in the morning, and burns off by noon.

As I look through a 4^th story window in the hospital where my dad is being treated, I can see the town where he spent many healthy years as a young man, cutting his path in life.

And now, just a few miles away, he lies in this hospital bed at the end of that journey; one can say this is the ‘circle of life.’ As King Solomon says ‘Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.’

I am also confronted with the notion that when my dad passes, the barrier between mortality and me is removed. And now I come face to face with my own death. Death has come knocking, not only for my dad, but for me, as I contemplate its purpose.

Existential Psychotherapist, Dr. Irvin Yalom says, “Death rumbles continuously under the surface, it is a dark unsettling presence at the rim of consciousness.”  

Death is a human ‘boundary’ that fences us in a world, that is temporal and transitory; a life where all things fade. We only have a brief time on this earth, and the ‘attachments’ I hold on to will burn-off like the fog.

So death is no longer an ‘academic question’ for me, it is here and real. I catch myself taking inventory of what really matters. I ask myself if the things I hold onto really mean much?

My mind flashes to the past resentments or anger at being wronged; all this comes into play when death comes knocking at the door. How much more should I throw those things off that tether me to this earth.

I am a Christian, and along with my dad we stand ‘in Christ’ and await the hope of eternal life. I completely understand ‘death’ has no power; I get that. But while I am here, on this earth right now, I am confronted with deaths’ finality on this side of heaven.   

We ‘believers’ sometimes miss ‘deaths’ lessons. It was easy to brush it aside-until now. Death is here; in my face, and now I understand who I am and my limitations. It is becoming clearer what really counts in this life, and what I can let go of.

With this lesson in mind, my faith is strengthened; not only in the knowledge that my dad will be in a better place, but while on this earth there are some things not worth being attached to.

When death comes knocking I will hold on to Faith-Hope and Love and from there, I will decide what really matters.  

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Funeral for A Friends Mom

I went to a funeral today. My friends mother passed away and she left a wonderful gift to her family. Faith and Heritage. Everyone has a story to tell. A life narrative. I saw the story play out in the hour I spent at the mass today. We all have a personal story and a family story. I never met my friends mom. I wish I had. But I saw and heard the story in my friend today.

Heritage is the story about life in the past-Faith is the story about life everlasting. My friends mom had a relationship with Jesus and she passed this down to her kids not just in her words but in her deeds. When the kids were sick, she came and comforted them, when they got in trouble she showed them grace. Her faith sustained her through her sickness and her faith comforted us in the church today.

The story did not end today, it continues in the lives of those who believe. For one day we will see my friends mom again in heaven. When you die what will your story be?...For Margaret it was a story of faith in Jesus and a wonderful heritage she passed on down...

Jesus invites you to be a part of this story...