My father died when I was 28 years old. Because of my fierce and overblown sense of independence as a kid and teenager, I was finally getting to the point where I not only was capable of listening to him, I wanted his advice. I wanted more of his life story. I was a bit lost for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I was 24 or 25 I had rejoined the church and found a new community in my new hometown, and there were several men of the congregation who I looked up to, and while they at some level treated me like an adult, I was not too much older than their own children, and some of them had begun to take on a father-like role in my personal mythology. These were men I could look up to, draw on their experience, and ask for advice. I joined the long-standing monthly men’s breakfast, being the youngest member by at least a decade if not two. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was because of these men that I think I was able to shrug off the last remnants of my teenage rebellion that had overstayed its welcome and listen to my father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now one of those men has passed away. He had moved away in retirement, but I think they had come back to the city or at least they visited a few times. He was in charge of the Men’s Breakfast at the time, which two sons of his own. On one of my first weeks at that church I joined the adult forum and he was in my small discussion group. We had watched a video of Madeline L’Engle and (I seem to recall) her summary of all prayer as either “thank you” or “help me”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prior to rejoining the church I had gotten married at 19, separated at 21, and eventually divorced. I was in a low spot in my life. I sat at that table with this complete stranger and admitted that during the service all I really could pray that morning had been “help”. He said something that made me feel better. He did not mock me for being weak, as I think a certain brand of man would. I remember a kindness and a sense of actual concern for my well-being, even though I was as much a stranger to him as he was to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What did he say? I ask my memory. No idea, my memory comes back with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his Meditations<\/em>, Marcus Aurelius started by listing all the lessons he learned from people around him. He wrote with a sense of gratitude and could say exactly what he had learned, what had been said, what had been shown. If I were to try such a thing myself, it would be “thanks to the kid whose name I can’t remember in my second kindergarten class”. Even my childhood best friend, who I reconnected with on Twitter a few years back, is this nebulous memories of good times. What did he teach me? What did I learn? I’m not sure I could say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even Russ, by best friend in my last two years of high school, who died a few years after graduation, lives in my memory as a bunch of anecdotes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And this kind man, who was one of those pillar of the community types, is gone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I know from my readings that the best way to process a death is to remember all the good things, all the lessons, the joys, and appreciate the way the deceased has shaped your life. If I talk to his wife, I don’t know what I could possibly say other than “He was a good man” and that seems, well, generic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My past failures continue to remind me that they exist, that I was not always a good man. I was often selfish and ignored the good advice and the good advice I did take with me entered my head without attribution. I have a memory full of regrets. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My father died when I was 28 years old. Because of my fierce and overblown sense of independence as a kid and teenager, I was finally getting to the point where I not only was capable of listening to him, I wanted his advice. I wanted more of his life story. I was a bit … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"1"},"categories":[70],"tags":[140,141,138,139],"class_list":["post-301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-armchair-philosophy","tag-church","tag-dad","tag-death","tag-failure"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302,"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joshuarenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}