His steps are a little slower these days. Actually, they are a lot slower and he shuffles as he walks. His shoulders stoop and his hands don’t always work like he wants them to. I find myself helping him put his coat on and opening bottles for him. He doesn’t hear well. He keeps his medications in his pocket and takes them like clockwork. He drops things and it isn’t easy for him to get up from a soft couch.
Amazingly, he does it all with such grace. No complaints about his aging process. He doesn’t allow, at least not in my presence, the slowing and slipping of things to frustrate him or cause him to be down, angry or depressed. He seems to be accepting that after almost 80 years on the planet, its just time to slow down a little.
Did I mention that he still holds a job? He is the Associate Pastor of the church where he first came to know God as a young man. He can still stand in a pulpit and proclaim the gospel with a clarity that many younger pastors would envy. He sits in staff meetings, and I imagine provides a voice of calm and reason and wisdom to any who would listen. He is still a leader of his congregation and an advocate for doing things in new and different ways. He studies his Bible, as he has done for 60 years to search out new lessons from God, and teaches Sunday School and two off-site Bible Studies.
It takes me off guard when I see him napping on the couch (or, perhaps just sitting with his eyes closed and thinking…unless he is snoring I’m never quite sure if he’s asleep or not). When I look at him through realistic eyes and see the man who has somehow become an old man, I think to myself, “Who is this man?” Because, in my heart and my mind and the eyes through which I mostly view the world, he is still a giant of a man. Tall, strong, handsome and walking with purpose in his stride. He could be frightening at times in his size and temper to a child as small as I was. He was bulwark of safety against the many things that frightened me. He knew the answer to any question I could ask. My earliest notions of God the Father certainly had a Bobbie Buster appearance to them.
I recall having this thought the year he turned 33: I just knew that this was the year he would die, because Jesus died when he was 33. I would have been 6 at the time. That is how deeply connected my early spiritual thoughts and ideas were tied up with my Sweet Daddy.
Never in my life have I needed my Daddy and had him not be there for me. Not always in a physical presence, but he has been there for me. He has been the hands and face of God to me throughout my life in his words, his deeds and his love.
And now we are at that time of life when middle aged children become more concerned about their aging parents and begin to consider what they ought and ought not do. How strange it feels to me that I ought to watch out for him. He has always taken care of me.
One of the sweetest relationships of my life has taken on a new and tender aspect. Today, my heart is full of thankfulness and joy that this man…this giant of a man whom I love and respect and wish to honor is My Sweet Daddy.
~Mollianne
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