Dear Friends,
My father died on May 12th, forty-five years ago. It was the Friday of Mother’s Day weekend and I was twenty-two, a seminarian, still learning about life. One of my sisters had married and was no longer at home but my other siblings were still there. It’s hard to lose your father at any age and my grief was compounded by the fact that I had just begun to appreciate him. I remember well the Father’s Day the year before he died because my formation director had asked me to tell my dad that I loved him and to thank him for the blessing he was to me. We were a typical German Catholic family where words of affection were seldom spoken and love was expressed through service. That meant I fulfilled the request to express my love by writing my father a letter enclosed with a Father’s Day card rather than telling him face to face. He read the letter while I watched and was clearly moved but did not say anything in response.
I knew that I had his blessing. My choice to enter the seminary had pleased him, made him proud. He once thought of entering the seminary himself. He always wanted his children to be content, to be safe, and to be cared for. As long as I was happy in my studies and in the future that lay ahead, then he was happy too.
My father built the house we lived in. He was a bricklayer, he built the house to endure any force of nature. It was so much like his own personality. The only time I ever heard him curse was when I accompanied him to work and things were not going well. Otherwise, he was always the steadiest person in the room. There were no hysterical outbursts, no depressions, no having to guess where his soul might be on a given day. With that steadiness, along with my mother’s supporting presence, he made for us a home that was always safe, a boring place perhaps, but always a safe one. When I think of the home I grew up in, I think of a safe shelter where you look at storms outside from a place of warmth and security (like most Nebraskans, if the tornado sirens sounded, we went looking for the cloud). The bullies in the neighborhood never got inside the walls of our home.
I am the oldest of the six kids. My sister Kathy was born 15 months after me, so I did not have long to enjoy my parents all by myself. Dad’s love and attention had to be shared with my siblings, I never thought of him as “my” dad, but always as “our” dad. Perhaps being a part of large family has helped me be a part of a bigger church family. I never minded being simply a part of the whole bunch. It may have helped me grasp the Lord’s Prayer. That God is “Our” Father, someone we share with others, not a private entity.
Having served in World War II, my dad did not marry until he was thirty-five but he wasted no time creating a family. His love for my mother was deep and profound. I witnessed the depth of that love in the tremendous sorrow my mother carried for the rest of her life following my dad’s death. While we children encouraged her to be open to finding another love, she was quick to say she would never find another. There was only the one love for her. No one could step into his place. Like so many couples of their generation, when they danced it was as if they were one. With grace and fluidity, they moved around the dance floor, whether that was a waltz, a polka or a two-step. A special night out was one that involved a band.
I’m older now by nine years than he was when he died. But I still live inside his blessing, consciously and unconsciously striving to measure up, to honor what he gave me, my father. The steadiness you feel from me, the safety you feel inside our walls, the care that I extend to everyone in the family, for all of that and so much more, you can thank my dad. Those are his blessings living on in me.
This weekend, remember the blessings you have received from your father and let him know you appreciate them and love him.
Peace,
Fr. Damian