My Father's Voice
Stories
Object:
Father's Day, June 15, 2003
Edited by John Sumwalt and Jo Perry-Sumwalt
Contents
A Story to Live By: "My Father's Voice" by John Sumwalt
Sharing Visions: "My Dad, Marlie" by Patricia Gallagher Marchant
Good Stories: "How to Forgive a Fallen Father" by John Sumwalt
Jo's Yarn Basket: "Dad's Quiet Years" by Jo Perry-Sumwalt
Father's Day is not a holy day on any church calendar. It is holy in many families - and so we are pleased to share some stories about and for dads of all ages. Jo tells about her dad, Lester, who for years has been doing for others and making things to give away, but now, at 91, can only give the gift of his presence. How thankful we are for that. My dad, Leonard, who has been making his home in heaven for almost five of our mortal years, is still very much a presence in my life. He comes to me in my dreams, and I know he helps me find lost things when I am working with his old tools at the farm. Patricia Marchant tells about her late dad, Marlie, who made his presence known in a most remarkable way. Do you have a story about your father to share? Send it to jsumwalt@naspa.net (with StoryShare in the subject line).
John Sumwalt
A Story to Live By
My Father's Voice
by John Sumwalt
I can still hear my father calling my name from the barn door at 6:00 a.m. when I was a boy. "John, time to get up! Time to milk the cows!" Dad had a piercing, resonant voice that echoed up and down the valley. It was an outdoor voice trained to be heard over the roar of tractors and bawling cattle. Even in the back of the church, when Dad tried to whisper in the midst of his weekly ushering duties, he could be heard clearly by everyone in the front pews. I could always tell by the tone of Dad's voice at 6:00 a.m. how his day was going. Some days it was almost musical, lilting like the old gospel hymns he loved to sing, and I knew the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and all was right with the world. I would pull the covers over my head and try to squeeze in a few more precious minutes of sleep. Ten minutes later I would hear him again, commanding and terse. "John, are you coming?" Then I would bolt to the window with a reluctant, acquiescing wave.
Forty years later I still wake up promptly at 6:00 a.m. listening for his voice.
The Soft Voice of Dad
Religiously, I am an incorrigible maverick. The only authority which resonated with my being is the Bible. It was like the voice of my father, calling up the stairs to his noisy children to knock it off. Mother would call repeatedly, with no results; but when we heard the soft voice of Dad, we knocked it off.
- Wisconsin artist Dierdre Luzwick, describing her artwork in The Surrealist's Bible (Christian Century, April 19, 2003, pg. 43)
Sharing Visions
My Dad, Marlie
by Patricia Gallagher Marchant
The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
John 3:8
My dad died nearly six years ago, and I am deeply at peace knowing he is free of the inner torment he endured in his adult life.
Dad decided to undergo an elective surgery to open his carotid arteries. They do one side at time, and his first procedure went well. He recovered, felt better, and decided to have the other side done right away. While in the recovery room after the second surgery, he had a stroke. The next six weeks, I witnessed my father preparing to let go, slowly going, and, on July 30, 1997, at 2:30 a.m., passing on. I had felt restless that day, awoke at the time of his passing, and received a phone call from my mom at 3:00 a.m. confirming that he had died. Dad was free. We were stunned, sad, and relieved.
Dad came to me a number of times within days and weeks of his passing. The morning after his death I was with Mom when I saw Dad, a shadowy figure, walking in the backyard. When I told Mom that Dad was visiting us, she was open and curious, and as I shared with conviction that I knew he was present, the hat Dad wore daily, hanging securely in its spot in the hallway, fell off the hook. Dad's first sign. We both knew he was with us and felt reassured. A gentle peace came to both of us.
The day of his funeral was incredibly powerful for my whole family. My husband and I and our three children surrounded Dad in his casket and talked to him in his physical form for the last time. My children, all school age, had written their Grandpa letters, and as we stuffed them into his pocket, we asked him to send us a sign that he was still with us. We ached and longed to see him again, and we told him so. The good-bye was more difficult than I had imagined.
My dad, Marlie, loved to hunt. He grew up on a farm, and nature spoke deeply to him. We asked him to come back as a hawk, falcon, or eagle. We wanted so much to have a concrete sign that he was still with us. We then joined the rest of my family for his funeral procession. I felt a wonderful ease that day, surrounded by family, friends, and many guardian angels. It happened to be my birthday: a painful yet transformative way to mark my own passage into my forties.
The next day, my family and I went on vacation to a family Bible camp in northern Wisconsin which we had been attending for ten years. We proceeded to lose ourselves in camp activities, but I still carried a longing for my dad. I was consoled knowing I would have a week in the company of caring families with whom I could mourn, pray, and slowly regroup. On the first day of camp we were told that a man who trains birds was planning to visit and share with us. He had never visited the camp before, nor has he since. We were open and curious. Many of us went to see him that warm summer day. He had a beautiful falcon on his arm. We watched his bird soar with incredible grace. One of the kids shouted, "What is your bird's name?" He replied, "Marlie." We were stunned. Marlie! His name was Marlie! We knew in that moment that Dad was with us.
Patricia Gallagher Marchant is a family therapist in private practice in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is a member of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church. Patricia's story appears in Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, and Healing Miracles [link to 0-7880-1896-5], edited by John E. Sumwalt (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Company, 2002). Vision Stories is available from CSS through their website (www.csspub.com) or by calling 1-800-241-4056. Vision Stories is also available at Cokesbury, Family Christian Stores, and many local Christian bookstores.
Good Stories
How to Forgive a Fallen Father
by John Sumwalt
So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh -- for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
Romans 8:12-13
On the eve of his sixteenth birthday, Jimmy Morton's world fell apart. It started first thing in the morning, after he arrived at school. He stopped by his locker to pick up some books and Alan Trammel poked his head around the corner, by the water fountain, and yelled, "Hey, Jimmy, guess who I saw your old man with last night? Helen Marcion!"
Helen Marcion had a reputation for hanging around bars and going out with a lot of men, anyone and everyone, or so people said.
"It looks like your pa is getting himself a little something on the side."
That did it for Jimmy. He tore down the hall and began to pound Alan Trammel with both fists. Jimmy had never been so furious in his whole life. If someone hadn't pulled them apart, Alan might have been seriously injured.
As he headed for his first class, he felt ashamed of himself for reacting so violently. But then, Alan shouldn't have said what he said. His dad might be a lot of things, and they might not get along sometimes, but he knew his dad would never cheat on his mom.
That night, on the way home from the football game, he stopped off at the drive-in to get an ice cream cone. On the way out, he happened to look into the parking lot across the street, and he couldn't believe what he saw. He didn't want to believe what he saw. There was his dad, coming out of a motel room with Helen Marcion. He ducked down behind a car so they wouldn't see him.
On the way home, he felt sick inside, scared sick, the kind of sick you feel when your life is on the line or when it seems that everything you hold dear in life is about to be lost.
When he got home, Jimmy went straight to bed. He didn't sleep much that night. And the next morning at breakfast, when his dad said "Happy Birthday," he couldn't bring himself to look at him, let alone speak to him.
After his mom left for work, Jimmy's dad asked him what was the matter. Jimmy didn't say anything. Finally in utter frustration, his dad said, "Well, be that way then, but when I get home tonight, I want some kind of explanation."
Then Jimmy couldn't stop himself. He just let it pour out. "You don't have any right to tell me anything. I saw you out with Helen Marcion last night!"
Without warning his dad slapped him hard across the face. And then he left. He just picked up his dinner pail and walked out the door.
That was the beginning of a long, awful silence between them. Jimmy's mom tried to get them to talk, even that first night at his birthday supper, but neither one would say a word. It was the unhappiest birthday Jimmy had ever had.
It went on like that for several weeks. Jimmy was determined that he was never going to speak to his dad again. He was so angry and so hurt that he just wanted to run away and start over again. But there was nowhere to go and it seemed like there was no way for the awful nightmare to end.
One day during English class, Jimmy got a message to report to the office. When he got there the principal told him his father had been in an accident at work, and his mother called to say he should come to the hospital immediately. The principal offered to drive him.
Jimmy had that scared sick feeling in his stomach all the way to the hospital. They went directly to the emergency room waiting area, where his mother, his grandpa and grandma, his mother's brother, Uncle Ben, the minister, and a couple of their close neighbors were already gathered.
Jimmy could tell from the looks on their faces that his father was seriously hurt. They said a scaffolding had collapsed, throwing him twenty feet to a concrete floor. There were numerous broken bones, but the biggest concern was a skull fracture and the possibility of damage to his spinal cord. The doctors were working to stabilize him before taking him to surgery.
When the doctor came out about a half hour later, he said Mr. Morton was stable but would require immediate surgery to repair some damaged blood vessels in his brain. He said the operation was risky, but he had only a 50/50 chance of survival if they didn't operate. He said he was conscious and wanted to talk to his wife and son before the surgery.
Suddenly Jimmy felt a big knot in the pit of his stomach. He got up and ran out of the room. He found a bench outside and as he sat down he just couldn't help himself, he began to cry. Why does life have to be so complicated, he thought? Why can't it be like it used to be? Why did his father have to do what he did?
After a little bit Jimmy felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Uncle Ben. Jimmy had always been close to Uncle Ben. He was only about ten years older than Jimmy, and it seemed like they could always talk.
He told his uncle everything that had happened, how awful he was feeling, and how he didn't know if he could face his father, even though he might be dying. "What am I going to do, Uncle Ben?"
Uncle Ben didn't say anything for a long time. He just sat there with his arm around Jimmy's shoulder. Finally he said, "You love your father very much, don't you, Jimmy? That's why you feel so angry about what he did. You wouldn't feel that way if you didn't love him." Jimmy nodded.
"Now, let me ask you this," his uncle said, "does one mistake, even though it is a serious one, wipe out all of those years of love?"
That did it. Jimmy hugged his uncle and ran back into the hospital. His mom was just coming out of his father's room. He hugged her, but they didn't speak. She just nodded that he should go in.
As he drew near the bed, his father smiled at him, took his hand, and squeezed it. Before he could say anything, his father said, "Jimmy, I know you're angry with me, and you have a right to be. I am not going to try to explain why I did what I did. I'm not even sure I know myself. But I know this. I love your mother and I love you more than anything else in the world. I want you always to remember that."
In that moment Jimmy felt whole again. He was still scared about the operation, but he knew that, whatever happened, at least things were right between him and his dad.
He squeezed his father's hand and said, "I love you too, Dad."
Jo's Yarn Basket
Dad's Quiet Years
by Jo Perry-Sumwalt
The clock in the living room just chimed eleven. It's the clock my dad made for us three years ago, when he was still able to "putter" around in the woodworking shop in his basement. He turned the finials on his own lathe and cut the curlicues on his scroll saw. It's a lovely clock. Every time it chimes I think of him.
Dad turned 91 last December, and my two sisters, my brother, and I all gathered to help him and Mom celebrate. Dad's mind and memory are still sharp, but his hearing isn't very good and his hip joints are so bad he uses a walker. He can't use his right arm for anything that requires raising it above waist high, due to an old shoulder injury, so he has learned to use his left hand for eating, holding, and carrying. It's hard to see him sitting in front of his TV most of the day and night. Dad was always busy making, building, inventing, or repairing something. In spite of his arm, he was still making the clocks and picture frames in his workshop up until a year and a half ago. But now congestive heart failure has him on oxygen most of the time, and he has become content to sit outside on nice days, walk around the yard to check on his flowers, and watch TV.
I say he's "content" to do these things because he doesn't seem grumpy or depressed. When asked how he's doing, he says, "Oh, pretty good," or "Oh, not too bad." For a man who spent his working life always on the move and his leisure time walking the hills of southwest Wisconsin hunting, fishing, or gathering fruit, nuts, and morel mushrooms, it's no small thing that watching TV, flowers, and his small-town world going by are "pretty good" or "not too bad." I sense that he is grateful for each day -- for the fact that Mom can still care for his needs; that he's at home, not in a nursing home; that he still has his little dog, Sam, for company; and that his four children, 12 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren visit, do odd jobs around the house, take care of the lawn, and drive him to appointments.
For a man who was always busy doing something, my dad's become an unusually quiet man. But he's thankful for his life and the days he still has, and we're so thankful to still have him. Happy Father's Day, Dad!
**********************************************
We are pleased to announce that the second volume in the vision series, titled Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels, and Holy Coincidences [link to 0-7880-1970-8], has now been released. It is available from CSS Publishing Company through their website (www.csspub.com) or by calling 1-800-241-4056.
The 85 contributing authors include the Canadian writer Ralph Milton, author of Julian's Cell; singers Kerri Sherwood, Cheryl Kirking, and Lee Domann; professor Linda J. Vogel of Garrett-Evangelical Seminary; and Rosmarie Trapp, whose family story was told in the movie The Sound of Music. Rosmarie also has a wonderful story in Vision Stories, which you will find in the bookstore when you visit the Von Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont, as we hope to do next summer.
John and Jo are collecting personal stories for a third collection to be released in 2004. The working title is Holy Moments: Life-Changing Visions And Other Signs of God's Presence. They are broadening the scope a bit to include any experience of the holy. Send stories to jsumwalt@naspa.net.
Praise For Sharing Visions
Bishop Richard Wilke, creator of the Disciple Bible Study series, writes: "I am rejoicing as I read the testimonies in Sharing Visions. What an inspiration! I recall my father, an unemotional man, telling me that his mother (who had died some years before) appeared to him in a dream and gave him counsel on a difficult decision he was wrestling with."
To learn more about John and Jo Sumwalt, visit their church website: http://www.waumc.org/. Click on "staff" for bios and photos.
StoryShare, June 15, 2003, issue.
Copyright 2003 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
Edited by John Sumwalt and Jo Perry-Sumwalt
Contents
A Story to Live By: "My Father's Voice" by John Sumwalt
Sharing Visions: "My Dad, Marlie" by Patricia Gallagher Marchant
Good Stories: "How to Forgive a Fallen Father" by John Sumwalt
Jo's Yarn Basket: "Dad's Quiet Years" by Jo Perry-Sumwalt
Father's Day is not a holy day on any church calendar. It is holy in many families - and so we are pleased to share some stories about and for dads of all ages. Jo tells about her dad, Lester, who for years has been doing for others and making things to give away, but now, at 91, can only give the gift of his presence. How thankful we are for that. My dad, Leonard, who has been making his home in heaven for almost five of our mortal years, is still very much a presence in my life. He comes to me in my dreams, and I know he helps me find lost things when I am working with his old tools at the farm. Patricia Marchant tells about her late dad, Marlie, who made his presence known in a most remarkable way. Do you have a story about your father to share? Send it to jsumwalt@naspa.net (with StoryShare in the subject line).
John Sumwalt
A Story to Live By
My Father's Voice
by John Sumwalt
I can still hear my father calling my name from the barn door at 6:00 a.m. when I was a boy. "John, time to get up! Time to milk the cows!" Dad had a piercing, resonant voice that echoed up and down the valley. It was an outdoor voice trained to be heard over the roar of tractors and bawling cattle. Even in the back of the church, when Dad tried to whisper in the midst of his weekly ushering duties, he could be heard clearly by everyone in the front pews. I could always tell by the tone of Dad's voice at 6:00 a.m. how his day was going. Some days it was almost musical, lilting like the old gospel hymns he loved to sing, and I knew the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and all was right with the world. I would pull the covers over my head and try to squeeze in a few more precious minutes of sleep. Ten minutes later I would hear him again, commanding and terse. "John, are you coming?" Then I would bolt to the window with a reluctant, acquiescing wave.
Forty years later I still wake up promptly at 6:00 a.m. listening for his voice.
The Soft Voice of Dad
Religiously, I am an incorrigible maverick. The only authority which resonated with my being is the Bible. It was like the voice of my father, calling up the stairs to his noisy children to knock it off. Mother would call repeatedly, with no results; but when we heard the soft voice of Dad, we knocked it off.
- Wisconsin artist Dierdre Luzwick, describing her artwork in The Surrealist's Bible (Christian Century, April 19, 2003, pg. 43)
Sharing Visions
My Dad, Marlie
by Patricia Gallagher Marchant
The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
John 3:8
My dad died nearly six years ago, and I am deeply at peace knowing he is free of the inner torment he endured in his adult life.
Dad decided to undergo an elective surgery to open his carotid arteries. They do one side at time, and his first procedure went well. He recovered, felt better, and decided to have the other side done right away. While in the recovery room after the second surgery, he had a stroke. The next six weeks, I witnessed my father preparing to let go, slowly going, and, on July 30, 1997, at 2:30 a.m., passing on. I had felt restless that day, awoke at the time of his passing, and received a phone call from my mom at 3:00 a.m. confirming that he had died. Dad was free. We were stunned, sad, and relieved.
Dad came to me a number of times within days and weeks of his passing. The morning after his death I was with Mom when I saw Dad, a shadowy figure, walking in the backyard. When I told Mom that Dad was visiting us, she was open and curious, and as I shared with conviction that I knew he was present, the hat Dad wore daily, hanging securely in its spot in the hallway, fell off the hook. Dad's first sign. We both knew he was with us and felt reassured. A gentle peace came to both of us.
The day of his funeral was incredibly powerful for my whole family. My husband and I and our three children surrounded Dad in his casket and talked to him in his physical form for the last time. My children, all school age, had written their Grandpa letters, and as we stuffed them into his pocket, we asked him to send us a sign that he was still with us. We ached and longed to see him again, and we told him so. The good-bye was more difficult than I had imagined.
My dad, Marlie, loved to hunt. He grew up on a farm, and nature spoke deeply to him. We asked him to come back as a hawk, falcon, or eagle. We wanted so much to have a concrete sign that he was still with us. We then joined the rest of my family for his funeral procession. I felt a wonderful ease that day, surrounded by family, friends, and many guardian angels. It happened to be my birthday: a painful yet transformative way to mark my own passage into my forties.
The next day, my family and I went on vacation to a family Bible camp in northern Wisconsin which we had been attending for ten years. We proceeded to lose ourselves in camp activities, but I still carried a longing for my dad. I was consoled knowing I would have a week in the company of caring families with whom I could mourn, pray, and slowly regroup. On the first day of camp we were told that a man who trains birds was planning to visit and share with us. He had never visited the camp before, nor has he since. We were open and curious. Many of us went to see him that warm summer day. He had a beautiful falcon on his arm. We watched his bird soar with incredible grace. One of the kids shouted, "What is your bird's name?" He replied, "Marlie." We were stunned. Marlie! His name was Marlie! We knew in that moment that Dad was with us.
Patricia Gallagher Marchant is a family therapist in private practice in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is a member of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church. Patricia's story appears in Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, and Healing Miracles [link to 0-7880-1896-5], edited by John E. Sumwalt (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Company, 2002). Vision Stories is available from CSS through their website (www.csspub.com) or by calling 1-800-241-4056. Vision Stories is also available at Cokesbury, Family Christian Stores, and many local Christian bookstores.
Good Stories
How to Forgive a Fallen Father
by John Sumwalt
So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh -- for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
Romans 8:12-13
On the eve of his sixteenth birthday, Jimmy Morton's world fell apart. It started first thing in the morning, after he arrived at school. He stopped by his locker to pick up some books and Alan Trammel poked his head around the corner, by the water fountain, and yelled, "Hey, Jimmy, guess who I saw your old man with last night? Helen Marcion!"
Helen Marcion had a reputation for hanging around bars and going out with a lot of men, anyone and everyone, or so people said.
"It looks like your pa is getting himself a little something on the side."
That did it for Jimmy. He tore down the hall and began to pound Alan Trammel with both fists. Jimmy had never been so furious in his whole life. If someone hadn't pulled them apart, Alan might have been seriously injured.
As he headed for his first class, he felt ashamed of himself for reacting so violently. But then, Alan shouldn't have said what he said. His dad might be a lot of things, and they might not get along sometimes, but he knew his dad would never cheat on his mom.
That night, on the way home from the football game, he stopped off at the drive-in to get an ice cream cone. On the way out, he happened to look into the parking lot across the street, and he couldn't believe what he saw. He didn't want to believe what he saw. There was his dad, coming out of a motel room with Helen Marcion. He ducked down behind a car so they wouldn't see him.
On the way home, he felt sick inside, scared sick, the kind of sick you feel when your life is on the line or when it seems that everything you hold dear in life is about to be lost.
When he got home, Jimmy went straight to bed. He didn't sleep much that night. And the next morning at breakfast, when his dad said "Happy Birthday," he couldn't bring himself to look at him, let alone speak to him.
After his mom left for work, Jimmy's dad asked him what was the matter. Jimmy didn't say anything. Finally in utter frustration, his dad said, "Well, be that way then, but when I get home tonight, I want some kind of explanation."
Then Jimmy couldn't stop himself. He just let it pour out. "You don't have any right to tell me anything. I saw you out with Helen Marcion last night!"
Without warning his dad slapped him hard across the face. And then he left. He just picked up his dinner pail and walked out the door.
That was the beginning of a long, awful silence between them. Jimmy's mom tried to get them to talk, even that first night at his birthday supper, but neither one would say a word. It was the unhappiest birthday Jimmy had ever had.
It went on like that for several weeks. Jimmy was determined that he was never going to speak to his dad again. He was so angry and so hurt that he just wanted to run away and start over again. But there was nowhere to go and it seemed like there was no way for the awful nightmare to end.
One day during English class, Jimmy got a message to report to the office. When he got there the principal told him his father had been in an accident at work, and his mother called to say he should come to the hospital immediately. The principal offered to drive him.
Jimmy had that scared sick feeling in his stomach all the way to the hospital. They went directly to the emergency room waiting area, where his mother, his grandpa and grandma, his mother's brother, Uncle Ben, the minister, and a couple of their close neighbors were already gathered.
Jimmy could tell from the looks on their faces that his father was seriously hurt. They said a scaffolding had collapsed, throwing him twenty feet to a concrete floor. There were numerous broken bones, but the biggest concern was a skull fracture and the possibility of damage to his spinal cord. The doctors were working to stabilize him before taking him to surgery.
When the doctor came out about a half hour later, he said Mr. Morton was stable but would require immediate surgery to repair some damaged blood vessels in his brain. He said the operation was risky, but he had only a 50/50 chance of survival if they didn't operate. He said he was conscious and wanted to talk to his wife and son before the surgery.
Suddenly Jimmy felt a big knot in the pit of his stomach. He got up and ran out of the room. He found a bench outside and as he sat down he just couldn't help himself, he began to cry. Why does life have to be so complicated, he thought? Why can't it be like it used to be? Why did his father have to do what he did?
After a little bit Jimmy felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Uncle Ben. Jimmy had always been close to Uncle Ben. He was only about ten years older than Jimmy, and it seemed like they could always talk.
He told his uncle everything that had happened, how awful he was feeling, and how he didn't know if he could face his father, even though he might be dying. "What am I going to do, Uncle Ben?"
Uncle Ben didn't say anything for a long time. He just sat there with his arm around Jimmy's shoulder. Finally he said, "You love your father very much, don't you, Jimmy? That's why you feel so angry about what he did. You wouldn't feel that way if you didn't love him." Jimmy nodded.
"Now, let me ask you this," his uncle said, "does one mistake, even though it is a serious one, wipe out all of those years of love?"
That did it. Jimmy hugged his uncle and ran back into the hospital. His mom was just coming out of his father's room. He hugged her, but they didn't speak. She just nodded that he should go in.
As he drew near the bed, his father smiled at him, took his hand, and squeezed it. Before he could say anything, his father said, "Jimmy, I know you're angry with me, and you have a right to be. I am not going to try to explain why I did what I did. I'm not even sure I know myself. But I know this. I love your mother and I love you more than anything else in the world. I want you always to remember that."
In that moment Jimmy felt whole again. He was still scared about the operation, but he knew that, whatever happened, at least things were right between him and his dad.
He squeezed his father's hand and said, "I love you too, Dad."
Jo's Yarn Basket
Dad's Quiet Years
by Jo Perry-Sumwalt
The clock in the living room just chimed eleven. It's the clock my dad made for us three years ago, when he was still able to "putter" around in the woodworking shop in his basement. He turned the finials on his own lathe and cut the curlicues on his scroll saw. It's a lovely clock. Every time it chimes I think of him.
Dad turned 91 last December, and my two sisters, my brother, and I all gathered to help him and Mom celebrate. Dad's mind and memory are still sharp, but his hearing isn't very good and his hip joints are so bad he uses a walker. He can't use his right arm for anything that requires raising it above waist high, due to an old shoulder injury, so he has learned to use his left hand for eating, holding, and carrying. It's hard to see him sitting in front of his TV most of the day and night. Dad was always busy making, building, inventing, or repairing something. In spite of his arm, he was still making the clocks and picture frames in his workshop up until a year and a half ago. But now congestive heart failure has him on oxygen most of the time, and he has become content to sit outside on nice days, walk around the yard to check on his flowers, and watch TV.
I say he's "content" to do these things because he doesn't seem grumpy or depressed. When asked how he's doing, he says, "Oh, pretty good," or "Oh, not too bad." For a man who spent his working life always on the move and his leisure time walking the hills of southwest Wisconsin hunting, fishing, or gathering fruit, nuts, and morel mushrooms, it's no small thing that watching TV, flowers, and his small-town world going by are "pretty good" or "not too bad." I sense that he is grateful for each day -- for the fact that Mom can still care for his needs; that he's at home, not in a nursing home; that he still has his little dog, Sam, for company; and that his four children, 12 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren visit, do odd jobs around the house, take care of the lawn, and drive him to appointments.
For a man who was always busy doing something, my dad's become an unusually quiet man. But he's thankful for his life and the days he still has, and we're so thankful to still have him. Happy Father's Day, Dad!
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We are pleased to announce that the second volume in the vision series, titled Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels, and Holy Coincidences [link to 0-7880-1970-8], has now been released. It is available from CSS Publishing Company through their website (www.csspub.com) or by calling 1-800-241-4056.
The 85 contributing authors include the Canadian writer Ralph Milton, author of Julian's Cell; singers Kerri Sherwood, Cheryl Kirking, and Lee Domann; professor Linda J. Vogel of Garrett-Evangelical Seminary; and Rosmarie Trapp, whose family story was told in the movie The Sound of Music. Rosmarie also has a wonderful story in Vision Stories, which you will find in the bookstore when you visit the Von Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont, as we hope to do next summer.
John and Jo are collecting personal stories for a third collection to be released in 2004. The working title is Holy Moments: Life-Changing Visions And Other Signs of God's Presence. They are broadening the scope a bit to include any experience of the holy. Send stories to jsumwalt@naspa.net.
Praise For Sharing Visions
Bishop Richard Wilke, creator of the Disciple Bible Study series, writes: "I am rejoicing as I read the testimonies in Sharing Visions. What an inspiration! I recall my father, an unemotional man, telling me that his mother (who had died some years before) appeared to him in a dream and gave him counsel on a difficult decision he was wrestling with."
To learn more about John and Jo Sumwalt, visit their church website: http://www.waumc.org/. Click on "staff" for bios and photos.
StoryShare, June 15, 2003, issue.
Copyright 2003 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
