Everyday Hero #7

 September 20, 2022

I should have reversed the order of my Everyday Heroes. Today would have been my mother’s 100th birthday, but I’ve written about her, so today belongs to my father.

It took me some years to really appreciate my dad. He wasn’t an “upfront” kind of man. He didn’t sing in the choir, teach a Sunday School class, or lead a Bible study. His church work was in the shadows, often unnoticed. I didn’t understand things the way I do today, and secretly wished he could be like some of the other men of the church I knew. 

That all changed one night. Dad was on numerous committees, and on this particular evening, he walked in the door after one of them and announced that he had given up all his committee work except trustees. “Too many nights away from the family,” he said. That night, he taught me about true priorities.

Then there was “the other woman,” Inge Leinenbaugh, a very attractive younger woman who worked in dad’s office, and was having marital problems. Somehow, she settled on dad as the one to whom she would go for counsel. Dad never wavered. His faithfulness to my mother through good times and bad, was rock solid. That lesson too, was not lost on me.

I’ll never forget the look on his face when I told him someone had broken into our car and stolen his toolbox. I had taken the boat and trailer to Hamlin Beach state park so our youth group could go waterskiing. We finished the outing with a campfire on the beach, after which I went to get the car and trailer so we could take the boat out of the water. Dad’s tools were gone. When I told him, he never said a word. He didn’t berate, scold, or beat me. He just looked at me and slowly turned away. It would have felt better if he had hit me, but he didn’t. Another thing he didn’t do: he never mentioned that incident again.

After dad retired, he and mom would traverse the Eastern Seaboard with a group called RVICS, “Volunteers in Christ’s Service,” working for Christian camps and schools, doing work they couldn’t otherwise afford, repairing, building, doing secretarial work, etc. They loved it, made lifelong friends, and left another example of quietly serving Christ even when no one is looking.

Dad inherited his hearing issues from his mother and passed them on to me. For the last four or five years of his life, we watched him slowly recede from life because he couldn’t hear. It never made sense to me that you can get health insurance that covers glasses, but only very rarely hearing aids. You can be blind and still be a part of peoples’ lives, participating in conversations. If you can’t hear, you are cut off, and eventually, you stop trying. I know. 

In April of his last year with us, the VA got him some new digital hearing aids, and it was like a resurrection! He was once more engaged in life! On Father’s Day that year, I called and wished him a happy Father’s Day. We talked for perhaps twenty minutes; something that would have been impossible a mere three months earlier. He was at their campsite on Lake Alice along with my brother, sister, mom, and assorted grandkids. When I hung up the phone, I commented to Linda how wonderful it was to be able to talk with him again. We got in the car and had started down the road to her mother’s place when we got a call from my nephew. “Poppa’s had a brain bleed. He had gone to take a nap, and my brother called to wish him a happy Father’s Day. When he answered the phone, his speech was all garbled. You better come.”

We turned around, got there as quickly as we could, but he never regained consciousness, and died later that evening. People have said how awful it was for him to die on Father’s Day, but I don’t see it that way. He closed his eyes here, and opened them to look on the face of his Savior, Jesus Christ. He was at one of his favorite places, enjoying his favorite Zweigle’s White Hots, surrounded by those he loved and who loved him most. I can think of few better ways to go, and of few better people to be Everyday Hero #7.