Everything I ever needed to know about God...I learned from Daddy

Daddy was my hero, he was strong, sensitive and sweet!
When I was a little girl, I thought he was biggest, strongest and smartest person on the planet.
He would throw me up in the air so high I felt like I might stop breathing but I was never afraid that he wouldn't catch me. I trusted him...completely, that he would always be there to pick me up after school, come running when I called him, love me no matter how difficult I became and banish bugs and monsters from my world.

He was always the first one up every morning. sitting at the kitchen table reading the big brown, worn and marked up bible with his cup of coffee. He would let me sit in his lap and read with him and even sip his coffee. He talked about God as if he was a friend. He would often get big tears in his eyes and he'd push his glasses back and just murmur, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Like a prayer but so personal and intimate it was like hearing love, feeling love. I later would come to understand and compare him to the disciple John who would lay his head on the breast of Jesus...He too was John, John the beloved, Beloved of God and everyone who knew him.

Saturday mornings he would take me to my music lessons, beaming in pride even though I never mastered my instrument. Then to Duncan Doughnuts for chocolate covered donuts and my own coffee with as many sugars as I liked. He listened while I chattered on and on and I was a chatterbox. He asked questions and really listened and cared about my trivial little world and my immature feelings. I never felt judged or that he didn't understand. Daddy cared, he cared about everything small or great. He worried about my teeth and my shoes fitting right, when it rained he made me wear the dreaded bright, yellow galoshes and raincoat. he loved my messy drawings and was interested in my toys and friends.

He taught me, not so much by telling but by showing.........
After our early coffee date we would go on the rounds.
Visiting the needy and single Moms in our community. (Not that we were any richer.)
They would always serve him coffee and me milk (it was our little secret that I drank coffee, it just wasn't appropriate for such a little girl) then he would either drive them and their children or get their list for their weekly groceries. We spent so many Saturday mornings grocery shopping, carrying big, brown paper sacks into so many different homes. I thought all Daddies must shop for other families too. He always smiled and said he was glad to do it. He was always patient no matter how the children whined or screamed in the supermarket. The cashiers always knew his name and would often hug him and sometimes tell me what a lucky little girl I was, having a saint for a father. I didn't know what a saint was he was just daddy to me.

I really don't remember him ever raising his voice to me. He would just say my name a couple of times and I would feel so sorrowful for disappointing him. His greatest sorrow would be when My brother, sister and I would have some disagreement. He would hang his head and sigh, " I just want my children to get along."and that was the great prayer of his life for us to love one another in unity, nothing pained him more than bickering. I was the baby of the family and knew I was the center of his universe. Mom would say "Your the apple of his eye." I was secure, I was safe, I was loved.

We grew closer as I grew a little older. I watched him retire early so he could spend more time serving our little community. He was a man of a few words but people listened when he spoke. He loved so.... always loving, always serving and always praying. Mom may have been more vocal and seemed stronger but he held us all together and made us strong by supporting us, protecting us, believing in all of us and loving us unconditionally. He wasn't afraid of feelings and tears. Many times he shed tears with me as he sympathized with some real or imagined injustice. Everything I took to him he fixed...whether it be a broken toy of or a shattered heart he knew the words and prayers to right a wrong.

How he loved my Mama, Theirs was a true romance. He thought her to be the loveliest creature on earth. He protected her, provided and supported her, spoiled her and valued her. His only flaw was this one... he was jealous for her, believing her to be so beautiful even in her 60's and 70's that he thought everyone else desired her. He never saw the wrinkles or the gray hair or extra weight, when he looked at her he still saw the young, vivacious beauty that had stolen his heart. He would love her passionately to the end. Her hand in his, her name still on his lips.

Daddy had a big eagle tattooed on his forearm and I used to trace the numbers on it as I sat in his lap. I asked him where he got it, he'd tell me that it was his number from the war. That first he belonged to God then to us and then to Uncle Sam....He said I was too little to understand but to always love freedom and know that freedom was not free. I didn't understand then.
Years later I would sit in awe and listen to him tell of his experiences in Normandy of D Day and Post War Poland I would cry as his eyes would fill with tears as he would tell me of the Jewish refugees from the concentration camps that he and his fellow soldiers drove in big green army trucks to freedom. He never forgot their faces, their stories and their suffering. He didn't like to talk about it but when we pressed him he would talk for hours his face sad and his eyes far away. when I would say he was a hero he would be offended because, "it was his duty nothing more," he would say.

Years later I would sit vigil at his death bed as more people than I could count would come and say goodbye, all of them with stories of how this gentle, loving man had changed their lives.
Check out clerks, pastors, construction workers, mechanics and neighbors and teen age boys, single moms and tough big men would cry at his bedside. nurse and doctors would stop and ask who this special man was and they too were amazed when he would love them and thank them for caring for him, never complaining. We took him home one last time and spent a few beautiful, memorable weeks singing, praying and visiting, He blessed us all. Literally like an old patriarch from the Old Testament he held us to his heart and blessed us. It was the holiest thing I've ever experienced.

Daddy was more than a father he was my friend, my refuge, my world when I was small....
He showed me God's nature NOW when I hear God called father I understand and I relate because like the Man who followed him here on earth, My Father, My God is strong and powerful,. gentle and kind He is my refuge and my counselor, caring oh so much about my every day struggles and concerns, He is ever loving me and oh so merciful and just like my Mama said "I'm the apple of his eye," and he too is Jealous for me.