My Father's grave: a first visit.

Fresno, California---The grave stone says April 22, 2010 but it was April 23 for me. I was a world away, enough time zones that it was the next day when my father died. And because I was on a sailboat off the coast of Italy, I did not make it back for the funeral.

I knew the chances were high that he would pass during my year at sea, so before I left I traveled to California specifically to say goodbye. In one way my trip abroad in 2010 started here.

Although I had said goodbye and knew I wouldn’t be able to return, it was harder than I thought to be away. Nothing is really as you plan. And now, I am here. In the place that the funeral took place. And finally I am standing at his grave for the first time. Again, it was not as I planned.
It has been three years and I KNOW he is not here at this spot. It’s just a grave. Lifeless. But it finally feels full circle. Completion…or something? Regardless I bawled. He was my Daddy, then "Dad". I was his Pumpkin. I rode on his huge shoes, arms locked around this leg with my sister on the other leg until the day we were so heavy he could no longer walk. He was a good man with lots of problems that were not his fault. God made him with mental challenges that I didn’t understand for years to come.

When my mom died in 1998, he was a mess. I received almost a letter a day from Kansas to Florida during his loneliness. Five years passed and he met his second wife and moved to Fresno, a mecca for the Mennonite Brethren sect of Mennonites due to our seminary and college located here.  Both of my parents are MB’s. But no, I did not grow up riding in a horse and buggy: we are not Amish, nor Old Mennonite. I respect my heritage immensely but have chosen to be a non-denominational Christian myself.

I made it a point to ask him where he wanted to be buried, not an easy conversation for any kid to have with a parent but very necessary. He did not hesitate to answer, he wanted to stay in California. At first I was hurt. We had a plot for him in Kansas next to my mom, where his parents were, where other family was! But then as I processed things more, I realized that when he moved to Fresno he was able to "recreate" himself. At 80 years old, he was able to become the man he had always wanted to be. He was no longer "Junkman Dalke" or that man that had been in Prairieview. All the eccentricities that I had grown up around (and made for some GREAT stories) were behind him. No one knew him as any other way than a sweet, funny, Christian man. Of course he wanted to stay here, he wanted to stay THAT man.

A cup I had mailed his widow marriage.

When he passed, I remember talking to my sister on the boat through Skype when I was in the tiny marina in Sibari, Italy. It was nice to be told “in person”. We had made a plan that did not include her going to California either, but she surprised me and went. Other things came full circle. Pastor Larry, the minister of the church that I had grown up in had gone on to be the president of the Fresno seminary and lived in Fresno. AND Pastor Mark, the man that was the minister of the same church 21 years later and was with us in the room when my mom passed away, had also moved to Fresno.  Both men had pastored at my home church in Newton, Kansas both men moved to Fresno, California and both men had attended the funeral.

That alone was very special.

Life is that way. Things come full circle, I came full circle.  But for me, this circle stays in Fresno as I move on, keeping the good memories and putting all the rest behind me.

 

 

Note: My blog Changing Courses post about that day in 2010:     bit.ly/d0JBG6