Dad's songs

On this Father’s Day, I find myself longing to honor my dad, to find fitting words with which to remember and cherish the gift of his presence in my life for nineteen years. A person is more than another’s memory, and I have always chafed at the platitude that loved ones somehow live on in the hearts or through the words of those who remain on earth. Dad exists without my help today. Just as if he were in Europe or China or anywhere else beyond my reach, his personhood is real and independent of my thoughts or feelings on the subject. And yet, words of remembrance do have value. Like the child’s scribbled page taped to the fridge, they catch an impression of the reality; like a shadow in the grass, they capture a shape of something more substantial.

The melody of Dad’s life wove through my childhood, and its resonances vibrate inside me even now. Dad wielded song as a way to store truth within the heart, as a part of the Good Fight, and as an opportunity to worship. The simple melodies and profound words he sang still point me to bedrock, especially when life seems complicated . . . “1,2,3, Jesus loves me / 4 and 5, he’s alive.” One song he taught me covers the saga of Creation, Fall, and Redemption:

In the beginning the Word of God came,
Creating everything by calling its name:
“Let there be light, and call it the day.
Let there be night. Oh hear and obey!”

Then the Lord, He made man as the crown of creation
But man, he fell into sin’s condemnation.
Then the Lord became man, in space and time,
Bringing salvation, to all mankind!*

This broad-shouldered working man wasn’t ashamed to hum “Jesus Loves Me” on a public bus to counteract another passenger’s open practice of Eastern Meditation. He graced a hospital elevator with the melody one day when he found himself sharing the space with a morgue-bound corpse. Because hearing was one of the last senses left to the dying, he hummed the song that almost everybody knew--just in case the soul hadn’t quite left for its eternal destination. I like knowing that the comfort of “Jesus Loves Me” doesn’t just apply to sweet children kneeling by downy bedsides. It belongs just as much to grownups standing next to death.


* Christmas, Charles. “King of Kings.” Songs of Praise. Vol. 1. Ann Arbor: Word of God, 1978.