Tears poured down my cheeks as I prepared to write my dad that September morning. In five days he would sit alone on what would have been his 38th wedding anniversary. My mother had died three months earlier of cancer.
I reflected on Dad’s tender heart toward his wife and children. Mom had chronic asthma, which worsened in rainy, moldy Washington state, where they were married. Believing doctors' counsel that she’d do better in sunny southern California (this was late ‘40s, before the smog got bad), he left his job and moved to unknowns in Los Angeles, where I would be born. Although a college graduate, he sold kitchen pots door-to-door until he got work in his chemistry-related profession. Together they worked out frugal solutions to one-income living so that Mom, with her medical issues, wouldn’t have to work. He supported her art and sewing hobbies, even helping her tie quilts and mark hems. Together they served the church and para-church groups.
I remembered his tender heart when at seven I had rheumatic fever and was given a fifty-fifty chance of living. He carried me into church to save my strength. At my mother’s death bed, as she lay struggling to breathe, he read to her from Psalm 116:15, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” As we waited for death, he held her swollen hand until his head drooped in exhausted sleep.
I spent the summer after her June death with him, but he insisted I go forward with plans to start graduate school 2,400 miles away from the family home. I’ll never forget his hug, tears, and prayers as we said goodbyes beside my packed car.
I’d been reading through Paul’s letters in the New Testament. Over and over the apostle had expressed thanks: “I have not stopped given thanks for you” (Ephesians 1:16); “I thank God every time I remember you” (Philippians 1:3); “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you” (Colossians 1:3); “I thank God, whom I serve, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers” (2 Timothy 1:3).
If Paul could tell his spiritual children how thankful he was for them, why couldn’t I tell my dad how thankful I was for him? Many times, of course, I’d told Dad that I loved him. But now, more than ever, he needed that affirmation. He needed to know why. I found a card at the campus bookstore that said, “Even when you feel alone, God is there.” Inside that card, I poured out my heart, expressing my love for him. I affirmed him for specific ways he cared for Mother, my sister and me. I suggested God had lots more for him to do.
Dad never mentioned getting the card. When I called, he was too emotional to say much. I didn’t dare ask. Ten weeks later, just before Christmas, I got a phone call from my brother-in-law. Dad had died suddenly of a heart attack.
As the single daughter, it fell to me to move home and empty out the family home and handle probate. That had been Dad’s desire before I left; he’d put my name on accounts to facilitate that and showed me where his will was. As I began what would become nearly a year’s task, I wondered about that letter. I asked a close neighbor and friend if he’d ever mentioned a special letter. She said yes, and that it meant a lot to him.
I really wanted to find it, but where, in such a full and cluttered house? January passed, then February as slowly I sorted out his and Mom’s belongings. I found old birthday cards, my grade school papers, and letters ten and fifteen years old. But not that letter. Then in March I got to the closet where luggage was stored. In the pocket of the suitcase he used on a trip just before his death, there it was. He had kept it with him, even on a trip!
I opened it and re-read it. Though tears, I had that sense of “rightness” over my transparent message of appreciation and gratitude. And I thanked God for prompting me to send that note of love—in time.
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