Three Rights Make a Left

My Daddy is Coming Home

I’m in worship on a Sunday night and I can barely sit still with anticipation. Tonight, is the night my daddy is coming home.

My daddy and my Uncle Jim, who lives next door, have worked together in the high voltage electrical trade, almost since I can remember. They are best friends, almost inseparable. But the past several months their work has taken them sixteen hundred and forty miles away to light the cold streets of Baltimore, Maryland. I miss both of them so much it hurts, but tonight my daddy is coming home.

I conjure up pictures of the good times with my dad. There are so many. They have carried me through his long absence but there is still a piece of my heart that has been gone. But tonight everything will be better, because tonight my daddy is coming home.

I think about my dad taking me deer hunting for the first time. I was little more than a toddler when daddy woke me early in the morning, bundled me up and drove to the deer lease. I remember laying in the floor of the blind in warm bundles at my father’s feet long before sunrise. I looked up at the stars and through the cold air and listened. I was certain that I could hear music from them. Years later I learned that ancient philosophers talked about “The music of the spheres.” Could it be that in that cold early morning in Hondo, Texas, I had heard the same thing that the ancients had heard?

“Aristotle … imputed this symphony of the heavens … this music of the spheres to Pythagoras. … But Pythagoras alone of mortals is said to have heard this harmony … If our hearts were as pure, as chaste, and as snowy as Pythagoras’ was, our ears would resound and be filled with that supremely lovely music of the wheeling stars.” ~John Milton

What I do know, is that sense of safety and love for and from my dad helped keep me warm and secure, and still does even to this day, though sixty years have passed.

The sermon is over and I come back to the present as we begin to sing “How Great Thou Art”. I sing the song at the top of my lungs. A thanks to God for giving me a daddy that loves me so much. For me it was a song from my heart to God’s ears: Because tonight my daddy is coming home.

Fast forward over fifty years. Christmas is only a couple of days away. It is my turn to be with my dad. My brothers and I have determined he will not be alone. We sit him up when he can’t breathe, give him ice chips or wash his face with a cool cloth. Our mom passed three years before and dad hasn’t been the same since. Dad’s walk since has been a struggle. There have been a couple of times I have persuaded him to go hunting since my mom passed, but it is a patient struggle to walk with him from the truck to the deer blind. But once there, all is right with the world. It is enough just to sit in the cold with my dad though early mornings are too much. We would go in the early afternoon and at dark my dad and I head home.

Tonight, however it is enough to sit next to his hospital bed and whatever comfort I can afford is little payment for the lifetime of memories we share. He is fighting hard to stay with us but losing that battle.

I hold my dad like a child and reassure him that everything will be alight.

After a couple of weeks, I have no choice but to head home, leaving care for our dad to my brothers.

I’m barely home when I get a Facetime call from my brother Ron. He puts the phone in front of my dad. Through gasps he says, “It’s time for me to go. I love you.” I ask him if he wants to be sedated like mom was and he nods: yes, and I offer a last prayer.

When I hang up the phone I am not filled with regret or even loss. My dad will always be with me. I know I’ll see him again. Tonight, my daddy is coming home.

I miss my dad so much, but take comfort that he is with my mom, his best friend Uncle Jim, and so many friends and family that loved him. The love and faith he left for us is enough.