Contemplating Tomorrow: Turning 63

This is the oldest photo I have Daddy and me.

You may have noticed that I have been spending much more time referring to my birthday this year than I have had in any of my previous four years of blogging. When I began to realize how much I was writing about February 14^th, I asked mu self, Why? After contemplating that why, I finally came up with the very simple answer.

My father was 63 years old when he died.

That was twenty-five years ago. I had resigned from my position as a county social services supervisor for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, put my house up for sale, loaded what belongings we could fit in a five-room dormitory apartment, and moved to Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. (Actually Ed is in Webster Groves, but only someone who is from St. Louis would pay any attention to that).

In October, seminary students at Eden had a week free of classes dedicated to catching up on the massive amount of assigned readings that no normal person could otherwise complete. When my relatives learned of that, my father, mother, sister, and an aunt decided to visit us for the weekend that ended reading week. They rented a huge automobile—I don’t remember the brand—and drove from Louisville to St. Louis.

Since my father had had several strokes which left him partially paralyzed and had had his right leg amputated just below the knee due to complication caused by sugar diabetes, he was unable to make it up the steps into our apartment. While the others were inside, he sat alone in the car.

At times I went outside and sat with him. Since talking was difficult for Daddy, we didn’t converse much. We just spent time sitting with each other. Of course, we all were together when we drove around St. Louis, ate at restaurants, and when Daddy took my sons, Nick and Rob, shopping for special gifts. Daddy bought Nick III, then about eleven, his first computer—a Commodore—which set him on the track of his life-long profession.

I was sad when they returned to Louisville. As the others packed and checked out from their motel, I helped Daddy down a short hallway to a side door, outside of which their rental car was parked. While helping him into the car, Daddy said something to me that he had seldom expressed. He said I love you. Then he smiled and said, I am happy that you are here. You should have gone to seminary many years ago.

Those were the last words my father ever spoke to me. Forty-eight hours after he left St. Louis, he was dead.

As I enter the age at which my father died, I have been thinking about him and his life. I wish I had spent more time with Daddy. I wish that… Well, I think you understand.

Becoming sixty-three has led me to a time of contemplating my own life and mortality. And that is why I have been thinking and writing so much about tomorrow, the day I enter the age at which my father died.