102

 This is the 102nd anniversary of my dad's birth.  He died a long long time ago.  He was in the midst of life. He died of pancreatic cancer which is not a good way to go.  I led the rosary for my siblings by his hospital bed while he lay dying.

Dad was born in his grandmother's house on 12th Street in Quincy, IL. His family lived in that area of Quincy most of his life, on Elm and Lind. But, his family moved out to truck garden and then out to a farm near Liberty, IL. His family sold a cow so that he could go off to college. He became a teacher and came home and then WWII called and he went to England with the Army Air Corps.  He spent most of the War near Cambridge and then volunteered for the mop up crew driving around Europe immediately after the War.

He came home, went back for a Master's Degree and married had kids and taught or managed schools in Illinois.  We camped as a family all over the United States.  He repaired houses in the summer for extra money.  We moved back to Liberty when he became a school superintendent.  When he retired he farmed and ran the local newspaper.

When he was 62, he died. My son wasn't yet two and doesn't remember him.  My husband didn't come with me when I came home for the funeral. It was one of many times I learned to support myself, I didn't have a true partner. And I really missed Dad.

But, many years later, a gift that Dad gave me was, when I was being derided and criticized by my partner I heard my dad's voice telling me to "come home", that nobody should talk to anyone like that.  There was no home to go to, but the point was, I was not doing the right thing to let myself be treated in such a fashion. I had such low self esteem at that time I wished that I could die.  The words I heard my dad say into my head that day and other times as well, saved my life. Eventually I considered that being a good Catholic didn't require me to suffer abuse.

And while all that is rather simplified and without all the details, still perhaps I have made that point that I loved my dad, my dad saved my life, and I honor him today for the great man he was.