Father’s Whistle

My dad had a whistle.

It was the kind that mattered not what we were doing.  Growing up, our world was to stop when Dad’s positioned fingers on the tip of his tongue and lips gave a forcible expulsion of breath.  It was a call to attention that demanded ours.  It was the kind that drew all six of us back together to the same place at the same time.

The Lord says, “When I whistle to them, they will come running.”

It’s weird that the world kept going round and round on his last day.

To and from I saw people going.

This and that I saw people doing.

But, I was holding tightly.

Both of my hands were holding on to my dad’s right one with dear life.

I watched the monitoring instrument.

It was erratic at first

Until it was too slow.

We watched his oxygen.

We saw his heart rate.

Until there were neither.

Everything stopped.

I know there were still ticks and I know there were still tocks that seemed to matter.

One nurse rushed for another to get the official time.

I didn’t need the other nurse.

It was 5:40 PM.   

I was there.

We all were.

All six of us in the same place at the same time.

For the last time.

It was our Father’s last whistle.

Zechariah 10:8

.

Sustained

Hey, Dad.

I’m not gonna lie.

I thought Comeback Tom had one more in him.

Every last ER trip before this one had my concern heightened. And, you sure had some ER trips!  But, this wasn’t the one.  I still have the hospital bracelet as my bookmark where you wrote a sentimental message,  “Thanks for staying with me,” at the one in 2019.  I mean, we sure had worse trips to the hospital than this one. But with each one, you had a standard line.  And we knew how you were.  Tired and worn out.  We really tried, though. We tried to suggest things like wheelchairs and lifts to make 87 easier, but even so you’d say, “Nope. Not giving up.”

Mom’s not giving up either, Dad.  She says she’s taking it one day at a time.

“What else can you do?” you would always say.  “Day by day.  What other choice you got?”

I’ve seen other choices, Dad.  I’ve seen what give up looks like.  I just never saw it in you.  I’m not seeing it in Mom, either.  Day by day.  She’s the strongest mom I know.

Through all this,  I have been given an unexpected gift.  I’ve experienced what it means to be sustained.  I can’t explain it any other way.  “Cast your burdens on the Lord and He will sustain you.”  I experienced comfort.  I experienced being held up. How can that be at such a time as this?

Jesus says it’s a gift.  “The peace I give is a gift the world cannot give.  So, don’t be troubled. I have told you these things before they happen so that when they do happen, you will believe.”

They happen, Dad.

Day by day.

John 14:27

Psalm 55:22

Be Not Afraid

“Be not afraid. I go before you always.”

I rose before the sun to the chorus of this hymnal playing in my thoughts on the morning following the request to choose songs for my dad’s funeral. In its repetition, there was a familiarity to the repeated verse, though nothing I could think that gave me reason to know it.

“Be not afraid. I go before you always,” it continued.

I didn’t want to forget the line.  I made myself keep saying it until I could search the internet exactly as I was hearing it.   It repeated.

In my curious pursuit, my heart was instantly touched at what the search revealed first. What God must have tucked away in my heart.  “A traditional Catholic hymnal.”   We had been thinking of songs to play, of course.  It had been requested of us.  We had been thinking of many of our songs.  We just couldn’t think of Dad’s.

I was quick to tell Mom my discovery, who assured me Dad loved that song.  He did?  He knew that song? She affirmed they both did.

“You shall see the face of God and live.”

Our family’s legacy of faith began with Dad in the Catholic Church.  As early as an altar boy, he had felt a duty of protection.  A duty that never left him.  The lyrics to this hymnal speaks of our Father in heaven, but what I know to be true is that it speaks of my father on earth.  God has revealed Himself to us in a collage of ways.

I’m confident it was in my father.

I hear him.

Be not afraid.

I go before you.

Always.

Isaiah 43

Mustard Seed

The doors in the center of our home are mustard yellow.

They were painted as such to purposely represent the parable of the mustard seed.

“The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.  It’s the smallest of all seeds.  It’s the seed that becomes the largest of all garden plants and grows into a tree where birds come and find shelter in its branches.” (NLT)

Our home is our mustard seed.

I’m always amazed at whose hearts God chooses to assemble here.  We host adult home groups and high schoolers on varying days each week.  The differences are in ages, circumstances, conditions and convictions.  On the occasions that we meet, the common seed at the center of them all is Christ.  And to see Christ represented in this way reflects a picture that we have hanging, “Let His glory fill this home.”  It helps me visualize His reflection.  It helps me see His image when the body of Christ gathers together.

It’s in companionship where we grow best.

In a similar kind of way, outside our home we’ve started a garden.  What we are discovering is that a better harvest is a result of companion planting.  It provides a favorable habitat and a far greater environment. It helps control threats to the growing process and increases the likelihood of reaping what we sow.  There are practices as a result of knowledge passed down through the generations. Isn’t it interesting that Jesus appointed 12 apostles to be His regular companions.  They were to accompany Him by His side before He sent them out.

It’s how the Kingdom of God grew.

When we gather, we hope to grow.

It’s by faith,

the size of a mustard seed.

Matthew 13:31

Matthew 17:20

Mark 3:14