FATHER'S DAY
Three generations of fathers at my son’s graduation from boot camp.
"Hi Marj, How are the kids?"
It was the first thing my father would say whenever my wife would call him. No matter what he was dealing with or how he was feeling, even while battling cancer, the first thing he wanted to know was how my kids were. I found out this week from my stepmother that a few years ago when they were in a bigger house, he went out to a yard sale and bought some bikes "just in case" Jim and Marji bring the kids down to visit. I was touched and convicted at the same time.
He was born in 1928. He went into the Marine Corps at the end of WWII and was able to go to Notre Dame on the GI Bill. He was Catholic, my mom was Protestant, and they did not have permission to marry. So he drove her from Ohio to Elkton Maryland and married her anyway. I guess Elkton was the Vegas of the day.
Whatever else happened in Elkton, he fell in love with the water and the Chesapeake Bay. He loved boats and boating and was always herding us on and off boats throughout our childhood. He would push us to take boating courses and after he retired, he served in the Coast Guard Auxiliary. Most of the kids never took up boating. We saw the expense and frustration of owning a boat firsthand. He would always remind us "a boat is a hole in the water into which you pour money.” But because of him we all love the water and are always trying to get back to it.
He was a teacher by trade and a good one, an English professor at Villanova his whole life. I took a course from him once and he gave me a C. No favoritism there. Growing up, the picture that I have of him in my mind is sitting at the end of a sofa surrounded by books and a pile of papers that he was grading. He read them all. My father was the most well-read man that I have ever known. He seemed to know something about everything.
He could hold his own in any Ivy League faculty lounge but preferred to talk to waitresses, mechanics, and dock workers. He was interested in everyone and would actually listen to what people had to say. He would talk with them, not at them, (something that I need to work on.)
His politics were left wing but he was always pro-life.
He was a published author, screenplays and short stories mostly. I loved his writing; it was smart but simple and unpretentious, like him.
He lived through the death of a beloved son, my younger brother, Christian. He was the only child of his wonderful second wife, Marilyn. It was horrible and I think it is the source of his constant inquiry "how are the kids?" He had learned how terrible and easy it is to lose one of us to a cruel and remorseless world. The biggest regret in my life is that I was not there for my little brother. I always thought that I would see him "later.”
I was wrong.
In his 84 years, my father married two great women and had seven children and 17 grandchildren.
He was a frustrated Cleveland Browns fan (our roots are in Ohio.)
He loved history; we would talk about it for hours. He taught me the love of books, stories, history, and teaching.
He did not like fancy food. He loved mashed potatoes with gravy and apple pie, unpretentious food for an unpretentious man.
He was a lapsed Catholic who espoused liberation theology. I was a Protestant preacher. We disagreed on much biblical interpretation, but he took the Bible seriously enough to read it many times in multiple translations, most of which he gave to me when he moved to Florida. He even taught himself Greek so that he could read the New Testament unfiltered by the English translators.
Our debates were never bitter and I remember saying once, "I don't know about all of that, Dad, but I am convinced that there is no hope for any of us apart from the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ." He was quiet for a moment and said softly, "I agree."
He used to listen to my sermons on tape and would come to church sometimes when I was preaching. He loved my preaching and would always come up afterwards to tell me, "good job.” What is it about sons that we never outgrow the desire to hear that from our father?
He would have loved Substack. We would definitely subscribe to each other.
In the end, as he lay dying of cancer, I did the only thing that I knew how to do.
I read the Bible to him.
I read John 14 and Isaiah, beautiful promises to a suffering people. I read Psalm 23; God is a shepherd. I read Revelation; God on His throne, and the breathtaking end of the story when God actually banishes death.
A small house in Florida.
An old man in a bed, dozing on morphine.
A congregation of one.
Not much for a preacher, but for a son? I would take that deal all day long.
That was 2012.
The kids are fine Dad, rest.
John Mark Green: Father, husband, grandpa, marine, scholar, teacher, boater, author.
"Honor your father and your mother" Heaven commands. None of us seem to do it very well. I was a wandering, rootless, ungrateful young man.
Now, the only response that I can offer to God on the matter is the same thing that I would say to anyone else.
I miss my Dad.
