Remembrances

I have thought a lot about my dear father today.

He was a really good teacher. At his funeral were students from his very first class, in 1967, to his last class in 1998. Our State Senator had my father for math, and attended the funeral. The church was packed full, I was really taken by how many lives he had touched but at the same time was not at all surprised. Many of my friends who had also had my father were in attendance; it had almost turned into a type of class reunion.

His best friend did not come to the funeral. We had asked him to be a pallbearer and he turned that down. I cannot blame him; his pain must have been so great, yet also his relief must have contradicted that pain, as I am sure he hated to see my father go downhill as rapidly as he did.

My uncle and I sat together, and I held his hand as he cried. My father was the last of his immediate family, and I knew he was so broken inside to lose his big brother. I have always been close to my uncle, closer than my sister or my mother. I got to see him this past summer 2007 while back in Oregon and introduced him to my children. It was the first time we had seen each other since the funeral.

My father did not want a lot of people going to the gravesite for the burial, but a large number still followed us 30 miles up the freeway to pay their final respects. It was such a cold December day, but the sun did shine, and an eagle flew overhead as he was laid into the ground.

That morning, while preparing for the preceding wake, I was looking out the window in the backyard when I saw the most brilliant sight. The morning frost was thick on the evergreens in my mother's backyard and, with the rays of the morning sun shining through the branches, a dazzling, sparkling frost powder was falling from the branches. The effect was amazing; it was as if raining diamonds. I called my sister, my mother's brother and my cousins, who had come down from up north for the funeral, to the back window and pointed, without words, at what I saw. We all stood there in silence, beholding this beauty, for a long time. I know we were all thinking the same thing; Dad wanted us to know he was there, too, and in a better place, and that he would be with us all this difficult day.

As my great-aunt watched the eagle soar over the cold cemetery where we were all standing, I heard her inhale and utter, "Oh, Mike, there you are." One of his favorite songs was "On Eagle's Wings" which was sung at his funeral Mass.

The Mass had ended, we decided, with "Angels We Have Heard on High." It was appropriate, considering it was only two days before Christmas.

What a shame that you could never know your grandchildren; your sense of humor is so vivid in their young personalities. I pray they never lose that.

I miss you, Dad.