RWO...RIP...

A post-midnight email from California on New Year's Eve bore the not entirely unexpected news of my father's death.

This was a man I truly did not know well, but whose shadow affected me deeply through the suffering of my mother...though his 'mistake' was redeemed many-fold in the lives of both of them through succeeding, blessed marriages. He was essentially out of my life way before my age got into double digits (i was the youngest of four daughters); and, before that, he was, to my young mind, an 'impresent' presence, traveling up and down the central valley, plying his cattle-related veterinary business.

But I came to know of him more completely in recent years, through updates from a California sister who, along with other family members, lovingly and respectfully has cared for him during the challenging six years prior to his death. She is known as a 'Buddhist Quaker', and undoubtedly both those edges defined and shaped her lovely actions.

In between those poles of time & experience, of my growing up & his dying, there was a slightly awkward re-entry into a somewhat shared life which began when he called me over 25 years ago. I had a father already - a stepfather. My children had a grandfather already - one who shared, lovingly and creatively, a giddy life of grandchildren joy with my mother. Yet, my father came as a quiet, gentle stranger into our lives and will be remembered not for tragedy and mis-steps, but for that very gentleness along with a lifetime love of music and its practice.

For this man who became a libertarian and an atheist soon after he left us...but who still remembered every tenor part to every hymn from his youth and sang such loudly as my sister played piano in his nursing home-away-from home ...my sister left 'How Great Thou Art' looping on the CD player at his bedside the night that he was to die. It played for quite some time before, during, and after his death.

That night, certainly some time around the actual moment of passing, Fr. C had a dream...of playing How Great Thou Art on the piano. In that dream, folks were singing. But, at some point, he started improvising and losing himself in it. And voices grew quiet.

But at the finish, they joined once again in song.

As he watched S2 play, the embroidered 'RWO' is barely visible on his sleeve
during a visit to us in Oregon oh so long ago...