Writing My Father’s Obituary

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This week I’m saying goodbye to my dad. It’s been an honor, and impossible, to write about him. He was such a gentle and loving soul. He was here for 87 years but what’s that, but a blink in time? Or at least that’s how it seems to me. 

But maybe it depends on how we measure. I guess we can measure by accomplishments, or by our health, or by the rewards we believe are our due (whether we get them or not). But dad didn’t measure by any of those standards. 

Dad measured by how well he listened. He taught me that, or I should say, he did his best. It might have begun to stick…about 50 years in.

He measured by how much he laughed. I tried to learn that from him, too. I’m definitely still studying. 

And he measured by how well he loved all of us: without question, or judgment, or criticism. This was, for me, his most powerful teaching. He showed me how to do it, he modeled it, but of everything he taught me, this one is the hardest. This one is the teaching of a lifetime, the one I’m still learning. The one I’ll remember about him the most: how well he loved, and taught me to love, without question.