Today is Father’s day here in the US. To give the back story about what I am posting about: On October 13, 1982 my father, Jack Lammers died of a massive heart attack. He was at work teaching 6th grade at Bryant school, when he started to feel faint and was taken to the hospital by the Principal, Mr. Halverson. He died shortly there after.
Today is a wonderful day for families all over. It is an important day to remember our fathers and to honor them. Which we don’t do enough. Our fathers teach us, love us, raise us, guild us… They don’t get the credit that mothers do, which is both fair and unfair. Since there are great fathers, great mothers, horrible fathers, horrible mothers and all grades in-between. Sadly, and thankfully, all mothers and fathers are human, they all fail, they all had sex, they all had good and bad thoughts, they have all succeeded and are infinitely cooler then we thought they were when we were in high school.
My parents had a great way of raising me, they let me know I wasn’t the center of the universe. They protected me, they taught me, but they were the couple, they were the ones who were in love. I was added later. There is just about no way you can go wrong as a parent, as long as you are there and don’t abuse your kids. Be a good example of what it is to be a Gentleman or a Lady for your kids. When they grow up, they will act how you acted, and we all become our parents in one way or another. My father was a gentleman, and a great teacher. He was intelligent, kind, thoughtful, very witty, funny, and incredibly talented. I am a pale shadow of his best attributes, I hope to become better each day.
My favorite poem is a sad one, it is about death, and loss. The loss of someone special who goes to early from our midsts. Death is not the end, it is just a change of address. I will leave this with the words of Lord Byron...
And Thou art Dead, as Young and Fair
BY LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON)
And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return'd to Earth!
Though Earth receiv'd them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.
I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;
There flowers or weeds at will may grow,
So I behold them not:
It is enough for me to prove
That what I lov'd, and long must love,
Like common earth can rot;
To me there needs no stone to tell,
'T is Nothing that I lov'd so well.
Yet did I love thee to the last
As fervently as thou,
Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.
The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,
Nor falsehood disavow:
And, what were worse, thou canst not see
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.
The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine:
The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.
The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;
Nor need I to repine
That all those charms have pass'd away,
I might have watch'd through long decay.
The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.
I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd,
And thou wert lovely to the last,
Extinguish'd, not decay'd;
As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.
As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.
Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
Returns again to me,
And more thy buried love endears
Than aught except its living years.
