On the Death of my Father.

I'd like to add my thoughts on my father to the ledger of STEEM. It was a pivotal moment in my life, as is the death of a parent in anyone's life. It's a recreation from my personal blog and I post it for posterity.

Late in the month of May, 2016, my father passed away at the age of 79. The passing of a parent is a dramatic moment in anyone's life.

Our Initial Relationship.

My Dad was a unique and interesting man. We did not always agree, or see eye to eye, in my younger years. In fact, for many years, I played a confused game trying to please him as I failed to imitate his achievements and following in his footsteps. Our journeys were never meant to be the same. It was an uncomfortable and disappointing time.

Getting to Know Each Other.

Eventually, I came to comprehend the man that dwelt within me, and we stopped playing that game. He grew more tolerant and I grew more decisive. In the middle there, somewhere, we came together and found our balance. I had come to appreciate all that he had done for me, and was able to express that to him. He likewise had grown more patient and understanding. A mellowing philosophy had taken off some of his hard edges. We had come to understand each others perspectives.

That was a precious gift in our relationship. In the month prior to his passing we had spoken on the phone for many hours. We had talked of how satisfying it was to appreciate each other and have the common understanding. I talked to him about how, in recent years, all that he had planted within me in those early years was just being discovered anew. His values of old, were becoming my new values. His positivity, his solution thinking, his will to impact upon the lives of others and his inherent sense of what it meant to be a man, were now coming alive in me. Through a long and circuitous route, I had discovered how to assimilate my father into the myself and still remain me. We were both enjoying this conversation immensely.

Who was my Father?

My father was a man who loved knowledge. A voracious reader. A lover of history. An informed man. I used to marvel at his ability to see the big picture in any subject. He always saw things from every angle and was able to put things in clear perspective and scale. I couldn’t even begin to fathom how much reading he must have done to acquire this uncanny sense, of his place, in time and space. It was a gift he encouraged in me. He ignited my passion for knowledge and history. He taught me to dig deep into a subject and look at things from all sides. He showed me how knowing our context, was a doorway to clear perception and awareness. Everything had a context from which it was derived.

Fundamental to his contextualization of his life was his passion for our ancestry. He needed to understand where we had come from. What was the substance of our being? What tests had our ancestors faced? How had we fared in trial and tribulation? He sought the answers to these questions in the lives of our ancestors. In doing so he added an invaluable treasure to our understanding of who we are, as a family, what made us this way, and how we came to be in the places we inhabit.

While he could be so serious and studied, he was also a larrakin and a joker. He had a smutty sense of humour and would laugh uproariously when he was able to inject his shock humour into a conversation. He loved to talk! For all his salesmen wiles about the value of listening, he could not stop himself from talking once his passion for a subject had been ignited. His passion ran deep too. With forceful emotion he would plead for people’s understanding. He desperately needed to impart the strength of meaning to his sometimes captive audience. I listened a lot and most of the time, I am glad I did. He had many good things to share.

The Storyteller.

That is probably one of the things I am going to miss the most. My father was a story teller. I would listen attentively for many hours, as he shared the myriad of stories he had both created himself, and derived from others. He had mastered all the elements of the story. He knew how to guide everyone gently to the climax and expound upon it’s themes and greater meaning. No doubt he is in heaven now, telling God and the angels stories, and insisting upon their unwavering attention. Encouraging the saints to seize the day. Or perhaps he is reclined in a dark smoky room with his likewise departed friends. Once more sharing wine, laughter and stories. Nick would be eagerly awaiting his arrival so they could recall some long forgotten conquest of their youth or laugh, wide eyed in amazement, at the temerity of some foolhardy endeavour.

My final thoughts.

He was a good man. He was a great man. He was a man with faults and shortfalls. He loved, lived and had few regrets. He taught me to live a unique and satisfying life. I will always love him dearly. I miss him very much in his passing. He will never be far from my thoughts. Rest in peace, Dad. Thanks for being authentically you.

Source: My Personal Blog