When heroes die.

We buried my/our dad last week.  It's hard to lose your hero.  My father was larger than life.  He lived his life with gusto.  Always loving, laughing, weeping, feeding, advising, challenging, rebuking, guiding and forgiving with the grace and authority given to him by Jesus.  I told someone that I am selfish.  I want my dad with me.  I wasn't through talking to and asking things of him yet.  And judging by the turnout at his wake and funeral, neither were many people.  My dad was the measure of a man in the true sense.  He was devoted to his God and family and friends.  That devotion and selfless love are what I wanted to stay.  But my God usurped my selfish thoughts and tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Frank come home."  My father died as he lived, doing his gardening on a bright May afternoon when his appointment with the King came.  So, sudden as to shock me to my core.  But oh, what a way he would want to go.  My mom found him in the grass, lying on his back, as if asleep with a small smile on his face.   So typical,  like the twinkle in his eye when he knew something you didn't and the childlike mischief my dad always had.  It was as if he was saying,  " I am sad to leave you, but oh, what awaits!!!"

Now that I've had time to think, I realize that my dad's selfless love and devotion lives on in me.  Just as it lives on in the people he touched and knew after they had met him.  Just as it lives on through the generations of our friends and families.  Selfless love.  Hmm, I know of a carpenters son who lived a life like that.  The gift of the cross is far more precious than gold or silver.  It is in the giref of death that I found the legacy of my father.  For that I stand proud and wipe my tears away.  I put a smile on my face and lock him away in my heart till I see him again!  What glory that will be!!


1st Cor. 15:55   
O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory? 


See you again dad!