Blessed Assurance

I came across this piece that I wrote while living in L.A. over 12 years ago and since Father's Day is approaching, I thought I would post it.



I could hear my father's voice above all the others.  It wasn't louder...just the rich perfect-pitch singing I had heard my entire life.  I could find the sound of his voice in the echoes of a chasm or in the din of a cacophonous room.

My father's voice was beautiful.  In high school he had waltzed, singing across the stage in, "The Merry Widow."  And at Stetson University, he sang in the chorus with Ted Cassidy ("Lurch" from the 1960's show, "The Addams Family").

It was funny, but growing up, I hadn't really noticed.  My father's singing was one of the simple, steady things of my little girl life.  Hearing him singing anywhere...while working at home, at church, or even a wedding...was one of the sweet commonalities of my existence.  I didn't really notice it, until I missed hearing it...until I missed hearing him.  This morning my ears heard without effort amid the gently-blended voices of the congregation singing, "Blessed Assurance...Jesus is mine...Oh what a foretaste of glory divine," on that Sunday in December.  This church had no stained-glass windows, it's interior simply furbished, but my father, sang the hymn with all of his heart.  And as long as I could remember, he'd sung just that way.

I was Pierre's oldest child.  We'd had our ups and downs: my growing pains...his being a protective Father.  But for me--for us---I felt as though we'd finally come full circle.  The place we now knew was all that we were in the beginning as a firstborn, very little girl with her Daddy.  Now, with the context of years and very much love, it was a place that was loving and peaceful, full of wistful wishing for what once was, mingled with the peace of the present.  I felt all the safety I'd felt as a little girl, only now it was coupled with a fierce kind of protectiveness for him too.  I finally had a beginning of an understanding for the great accountability that he had given to me without question or resentment.  He wore the unshakeable love of a parent for a child, the love that really did mean "no matter what."  All those too emotional, young woman years seemed so silly to me now.  And the Father that I had often questioned and challenged, had loved me through all of it, though even now I don't know how.

I can remember the younger Father.  The one who tried so diligently to always do the things that would bring all of his children to the same kind of "peace that passes all understanding" (Philippians, 4:7) that he had.  He loved God with the fullness of heart that inspires others.  And that love, I think, somehow made his capacity of loving people more expansive.  He loved his family--he would have given his life for any of us, but he loved people too.  I couldn't quite comprehend it for most of my life.  So often it seemed that he acted without a thought of himself.  He didn't seem to know how to question people's motives.  I knew I was not made that way, but secretly, a part of me envied his ability to live free of worry for himself.

I live so far from him now.  Perhaps it is, in part, that distance that draws me to these thoughts of my Father.  But there isn't a day that passes that I don't catch myself thinking of all the little things about him...his handsome, sun-worn sailor's face or his smile that manifests his warmth.  I think how he would love the ocean here with its Pacific hugeness set against the backdrop of the Sierra Mountains.  Or how he might wonder about the special earthquake-design architecture of California.  He would notice the many people who are in need of any help someone could give.  He would love how different things are here and he would love discovering all of it.

Of the five children born to my Father and Mother, there is not one of us like the other.  Looking back, I can only think that the independent nature of each one of us, came in large part from watching Pierre as we grew up, not yet aware of the concept, but learning it just the same.  And for all of the difference between us, we are tender friends.  There is nothing and no one that can take that away from us.  It is our own circle of unity; a solidarity that is wordless.  It is comfort when no one else is there, salve on any wounds of the heart.

I think on these things now, remembering bickering children whose Father reminds in a most serious, but gentle tone of voice that there is no one else under Heaven with exactly the same blood running through their veins.  No one will ever be closer than brothers and sisters.  Not even the Father.  Not even the Mother.  The bickering children stop bickering, listening solemnly to the admonition of their Father.  The children are young.  He must wonder if they understand him.  But they did.  We would take care of each other...always.  I cannot help but think of how indebted we are for such a legacy, one so full of greatness of heart.  We can never repay it.

I wonder sometimes if I will have children of my own; if I can truly be all that is required for such a tender  endowment.  And even now, all this distance into my adulthood, I only hope that if I do, I can love them as diligently, as wholly, as Pierre loved all of us and how blessed it was-- how blessed it is, to be loved that way.