by jphilo | Mar 4, 2013 | Family
Sixteen years ago this day, my father died.
He was born almost 68 years earlier, the long-awaited and only child of his doting parents, Cyril and Fern Stratton. Maybe because he was an only his parents, who raised him on an Iowa farm during the Great Depression, could afford to take so many pictures of their little boy. Maybe caring for only one child gave his mom time to glue the photos on the black pages of an album and label them in her careful handwriting with a white-inked pen–page after page of quaint photos in which little Harlan looks like a member of the Little Rascals gang.
It’s hard to reconcile the blond-haired toddler in the pictures with my dark-haired dad until I see my father’s smile and joyful spirit shining on the child’s face. Then the resemblance is startling, striking, because throughout his life, Dad was a child–even a rascal–at heart.
When we were young, he was our kindred spirit. My brother, sister, and I loved to be near him. We snuggled close to him on the couch, though we learned to keep a wary eye out for his finger pokes and tickles. He taught us silly songs, showed us how to make goofy faces, and laughed until he cried at the television shows that made us laugh until we cried, too.
On summer days, when Dad wheeled his chair outside and parked in the driveway, the neighborhood kids came running. Children swarmed around him as he told jokes, handed out nicknames like candy, and–until Mom put a stop to it–gave wheelchair rides to those daring enough to climb into his lap.
As the years went by and multiple sclerosis stripped away Dad’s physical abilities, his speech, and finally, his memories, when all he could do was lay in a bed or sit propped up in a wheelchair, the presence of little children stirred him to life. His eyes followed the movement of his grandchildren. His head turned to the sound of the high, piping voices of his grand-nieces and nephews. A grin spread across his face and he snorted with laughter.
In the presence of children, his spirit broke through the walls of his ravaged body. For a moment, the man we missed so much returned. For a moment we saw, that despite a long struggle against a cruel and devastating disease, our father was still a child–and even a rascal–at heart.
Oh, Dad, I miss your smile.
In memory of Harlan John Stratton: May 11, 1929–March 4, 1997
by jphilo | Jan 25, 2013 | Reflections on the Past
Tom Balm was an extraordinary man.
He laughed more than a minister should, at least by 1967 standards,
when he came to our small town Iowa church.
He spent too much time visiting the poor and needy,
too many hours sitting with those too infirm to come to church on Sunday morning,
too many Sunday school classes explaining propitiation to uninterested middle schoolers.
Several times a week, his voice mingled with my father’s
and floated down the hall to meet my brother, sister, and I
when we got home from school.
We walked into Dad’s room where he lay in bed,
Tom on a chair beside him,
both of them chortling and chuckling
until tears ran down their cheeks,
until the loneliness left my father’s eyes,
until Tom said good-bye and took the laughter with him.
I close my eyes and see Tom sitting by our Sunday school room window,
riding herd on a roomful of hormonal middle schoolers,
spreading his arms to illustrate Christ’s crucifixion,
earnestly explaining how the Son
bore the wrath of the Father
for the sins of the world.
Did he use the word propitiation?
I don’t know.
But decades later, when a pastor used the word in a sermon,
I pictured the window and the Sunday school room of my childhood
and Tom with his arms spread wide.
Finally, I understood
the extraordinary love of the God
Tom wanted to share with a group of middle schoolers,
Finally, I understood
the extraordinary nature of a man
touched by the love of God he wanted us to know.
A man with a heart full of laughter.
A man who made a difference in the lives
of a father who could not leave his bed,
and the three children who loved him.
In memory of Reverend Tom Balm, August 14, 1932–November 29, 2012
by jphilo | Mar 5, 2012 | Family
Yesterday morning’s date, March 4, kept niggling in my brain. But until an email arrived from my youngest cousin Dan, the significance of the date escaped me. It was the anniversary of my father’s death. The fifteenth anniversary, to be exact.
Fifteen years since Dad’s soul left the body that imprisoned him for so many years.
Fifteen years since his wide grin graced my day.
Fifteen years since his family said good-by to the bravest man we knew.
Fifteen years later, my cousin Dan remembered the loss by sending this passage. I hope resonates in you as deeply as it did in him and in me.
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle each other.
Then someone at my side says: ‘There, she is gone!’
‘Gone where?’
Gone from my sight. That’s all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: ‘There, she is gone!’ There are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: ‘Here she comes!’
And that is dying.
~ Henry Van Dyke
In memory of Harlan John Stratton: May 11, 1929 – March 4, 1997
Here he comes!
by jphilo | Feb 13, 2012 | Family
When Mom and I kept our standing lunch date last Tuesday, I mentioned that our next lunch would fall on Valentine’s Day. “That’s kind of fun, Mom. What would you like for Valentine’s Day?”
She thought for a few seconds. “Well, what I really want for Valentine’s Day I can’t have.” She fiddled with her coffee cup. “So I might as well not mention it.”
“Go ahead,” I encouraged her. “What do you really want?”
“What I really want is a few more years with your dad before his mind went…” She paused and moved her fingers in a circle at the side of her head. Her brow furrowed, and her blue eyes looked sad. “…you know, before he was…”
“I know,” I whispered.
“He wasn’t with me that way long enough,” Mom sighed.
I nodded, not knowing what to say. There are no words for Mom’s loss. Dad’s diagnosis of multiple sclerosis at age 29, less than 10 years after their marriage. The love of her life struck down by multiple sclerosis. The end of her dream of being the wife of a county extension agent and mother to an increasing brood of kids. The loss of the bread winner, the protector, and leader of the family she loved so much and taking on those roles for the next 38 years as Dad slowly failed and finally died at age 67.
Now, 15 years after his death, what does Mom want for Valentine’s Day?
Not chocolate.
Not flowers.
Not a card.
She wants a few more years with her husband as he once was.
I looked at her, across the table, and said, “We can’t know what life would have been like if he hadn’t gotten sick. But I do know the life you gave us was a good one. You raised us well.”
She nodded and smiled. “I did a pretty good job, didn’t I?”
“You did,” I agreed and helped her into her coat and out the door.
Hiram’s off tomorrow, so we’re going down together to see Mom. We’ll take her to lunch at Culver’s, one of her favorite places to eat. Mainly because she loves their frozen turtle custard.
Over dessert, we’ll tease her like Dad did. We’ll talk about his love of ice cream, his silly jokes, his infectious grin, the goofy songs he loved to sing, the cribbage rules he invented as he played.
Compared to what Mom has lost, lunch at Culvers doesn’t seem like much. But perhaps, sharing memories of Dad and indulging in the laughter and dessert he loved will bring him to her in some small way. Perhaps, over frozen custard, we can give Mom a memory of what she’s wanted for Valentine’s Day for years.
by jphilo | Dec 19, 2011 | Reflections on the Past
The editor of the Boone News-Republican, our local newspaper, wrote an article about our church youth group’s annual caroling party. According to the reporter, the practice of caroling is dwindling away.
If that is true, I mourn the loss because I know how much it meant to Dad. Once he was confined to a wheelchair, he didn’t get out much in winter. While Mom was teaching and we kids were at school, he sat alone in our house, a prisoner to the snow and cold that made navigating his wheelchair outdoors almost impossible. When we came home each afternoon, Dad’s smile couldn’t quite cover the loneliness that made his shoulders slump and his forehead wrinkle.
But in the weeks leading up to Christmas, when we heard car doors slam in the driveway, the thump of boots on the sidewalk, and the doorbell ring, he was a different man. My cold-hating father threw open the front door, parked his wheelchair smack dab in the vortex of the frigid air, and pleasure warmed his body as he listened to the carolers.
That joy is what our youth pastor, Joel Waltz, tried to communicate to his charges before they started caroling last Wednesday night. “It may not seem like a big deal to you, it may seem like fun, but to someone at that doorstep or to someone at the hospital…or homes…it means a big deal to them,” he said. (To read the whole article and hear the kids sing some carols, go to www.newsrepublican.com.)
I think of Dad, shivering in the cold, grinning from ear to ear, waving to friends and strangers alike, thanking them for coming, wishing them a Merry Christmas as the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, 4-Hers, high school activity clubs, youth groups, and Sunday school classes went back to their cars. If our youth group kids could have seen the sadness leave his shoulders, could have watched the wrinkles leave his forehead as the last strains of We Wish You a Merry Christmas died away, they would know Joel’s words are true. Caroling on someone’s doorstep or in a hospital is a big deal.
May it never be a lost art.
