Remembering

My father told me he took the Georgia Bar Exam with a fountain pen.  He said he did so because he thought it would be “cool,” and because he simply could not imagine using a pencil for such a momentous occasion.  He passed the bar in December 1964.  I was born the following March.  In a span of three months, a very young, and I imagine, an idealistic, twenty-three year old became both a lawyer and a father.

My father was a beloved man, and no less so than by his children.  Many knew him as a great champion of justice.  And, while he was indeed that, for four of us, he was just known as our dad. 

My father touched many lives and left great reminders of his time here on earth.   As his children, we were very proud of his accomplishments, and glad that he found a vocation for which he had such great passion.  But, truthfully, it didn’t really matter to us what he did for a living, who he was in the community, or how many wrongs he righted.  What matter to us was one simple thing – his presence – his presence in our lives. 

When I remember my father, I think of purple tricycles, tulips, and Jonathan Livingston Seagull.  I think of weekends and holidays, and awakening to a house filled with music and dancing.  I think of picnics and birthday dinners, playing the basketball game of HORSE, and its faster sister game of PIG.  I think of dining out, homemade omelets, and gourmet Chef Boyardee pizzas.  I think of Niagara Falls and Disneyland, cameras and photos of women’s butts.  I think of fall leaves, hammocks and swings, lofts and fire escape ladders, suitcases and pullout beds, Saturday night TV, and fireplaces and lazy chairs.

I see my father in each of his children – in the genuineness of Allison’s laugh, in the slow steady stride of Michael’s walk, in the affable attraction of Zachary’s personality, and in the ease at which I cry both in sadness and in joy. 

Grief over the loss of a parent is such an extraordinary process – it transports you to places in time you believed long forgotten.  It makes you sad and it makes you angry.  It makes you mourn for the person that’s no longer here, for the person that never was, and for the person that never will be.  Yet, time is a strong healer.  And with time comes the gift of gratitude and appreciation.

I am grateful to have called Fred Orr my father.  He was a kind and gentle man that loved us so deeply, that he sometimes found it difficult to be fully present in our lives.  Yet, when he was, it was, as my sister says, magic.

I miss his hug.  I miss his smile.  I miss his voice and the way he called me Sweetheart. 

Yet, two years after his passing from this physical experience, I feel his spirit remains with me.  While revered and adored by so many, I celebrate the man he was, not as a romanticized fictional character, but as a human being, in his totality of depth and complexity, strengths and weaknesses – in all his amazing spirit and glorious flaws.

Another “Fred” of my childhood, Mister Rogers, said, “It’s really easy to fall into the trap of believing that what we do is more important than what we are.  Of course, it’s the opposite that’s true.  What we are, ultimately determines what we do.”  At a very early age, my father naturally took on the role of protector and advocate.  He spent his life helping others in his own personal campaign to save the world.  In his last months, as he allowed others to help him, he found his own peace, healing from what he termed a lifetime of pressure and the illusion of conflict. 

My father was an optimist.  Daddy loved this thing called life, and believed that there were many opportunities to live it.  So, I end with a quote from one of my favorite authors, Marianne Williamson, who writes in her book, The Age of Miracles, of the passing of her profoundly charismatic father, and how in the “purity of spirit,” she felt that he truly could see her for the first time.  “My father’s dying didn’t end our relationship; we’ve simply entered the next phase of it.”