My father died April 13, 2018, 60 years to the day after he gave my mother a promise pin in the spring of ’58. She was 19. He was 24. Long marriage. Made good on the promise. Four kids. They made us strong and flexible. They taught us teamwork. They’d change the furniture around or start a new household project when things got stale. Mom was visionary, Dad, the implementation person, builder, and tinkerer– Supreme Doer.

Mom: I can see that whole wall, floor -to -ceiling with bookshelves.

Done.

Mom: Don’t you think we could strip that old corner cupboard, bring it out of the barn and into the house?

Done.

Mom: Let’s make a garden like we saw over in England (or Tuscany, or over in New Harmony, Indiana.)

Done. Done. Done again.

He did these things on “off hours”, while serving in capacities as a high school math teacher, a church elder, a business manager, master gardener, friend to so many, he also taught the power of presence, paying attention, and following one’s own creative callings.

Whether he was making bookshelves for our mother, an attic loft for my teenage brother, tables out of reclaimed bowling alley lanes, simple river stone carin sculptures, planting hundreds of trees, or simply following his curiosity in conversation with you, he was all there and all in –in service, busting down whatever walls prevented us from connecting, or alternatively, building rooms to keep us safe.

When I was eight he held my hand as I lay morose and tearful on our nubby couch after school on a grey autumn day. I was a stressed, anxious child. “I know”, he said. “School can be really hard.”

When I was eleven he held my hand as we walked wordless, me shaking, to the gathering area at Vinton County Church Camp, my first sleep-away camp experience (which, for someone who could barely make it through typical sleep-overs three blocks from home, was a big deal).

At twenty-seven, he held my hand as we walked through Cincinnati’s Eden Park to my future husband’s med school graduation. Out of the blue, he said “You know, you are not alone, we’re here for you.”—I suspect both of us felt on the cusp of big life changes. We’d had talks about a few existential matters at that point and while we’d debated the question of whether or not we are each fundamentally alone in this world, he tended toward the conviction that with faith and love, and maybe a god out there, we were less alone then we think we are.

Our father, Charles Richard Lodge, taught us many things. Among them, and for me, personally, was the embodiment of loving service and attention to whatever you happen to love. He developed a deep capacity for imparting this gift to the people around him whether they were friends or strangers. For him, this was hard-earned grace, after rough beginnings and the slow healing of his own wounds.

This past April, I held his hand a lot. So did my 3 other siblings, my husband, and our mother. For three days, tag-teaming, we were a chain of hands through the hard labor of his dying. Believing he could hear us, we reminded him of all he’d given us, all he meant to us, and his world of family and friends. We reminded him that his work could be done but in fact, would carry on through each of us. I have no doubt it will.  He was never alone.

Neither are we.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BLR for the Poplar Grove Muse