“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.” Exodus 20:12
I pray you will forgive me for a bit of self-indulgence. I thought I was done with my comments on the fifth commandment until this morning when I felt the desire to honor my parents in the blog.
First of all, my parents both knew Christ since they were teenagers. For that I am most grateful. They knew each other from church. They fell in love and married while quite young. They rapidly had two children when they were practically children themselves. After a gap of several years, they had me, the youngest.
As the youngest I have fond memories of being home alone with my mother when my siblings were already off to school. My self-employed father worked many long hard hours to support my mother and us kids. My parents never had any money—paying the bills whenever money trickled in.
We were not merely a church-going family. We were at church whenever the doors were opened, and they were frequently opened by my father. They were always pillars of the churches in which we were members.
My father didn’t have to attend all my games for me to know he loved me. He demonstrated that in many other ways.
My mother and father were affectionate with each other. They loved each other and I am thankful that we kids knew it.
My father was a fourth-generation wallpaper hanger. Though neither my brother nor I became the fifth generation professionally, my dad taught his sons his trade. Some of my fondest memories were created when working for and with my father.
My parents loved their grandchildren. They were more reserved and didn’t “gush” over them the way Frances and I do over ours, but I know they loved our children.
The second time we went to Israel (and Rome), I led the tour, and that my parents and mother-in-law went with us will be among the fondest memories I have of my parents. I loved frequently watching my mother’s lips quiver with emotion as she would say, “Our Savior was here!”
Very soon after we returned from that tour, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. She lived for only fourteen more months. I was deeply affected by her death; she was only 64 years of age. I carry a laminated copy of the newspaper obituary in my day-timer. (Yes, I still carry a day-timer.)
Two-and a half decades later, in his 90s, my father was beginning to fail. It was time. Frances and I moved back into the house I grew up in. For the next ten months the roles reversed for us to care for my father and his wife (he remarried after my mother died).
We are not noble for doing this. We were simply, by the grace of God, the ones who were most able. My most wonderful sister and her husband were very much involved in their care as well.
It was not always easy caring for them. But it was harder on my dad to be cared for than it was for me to care for him, if you know what I mean.
My father was always witty and generously dispensed his old-fashioned home-spun wisdom. He was sharp-minded until thirty-six hours before he departed to see his Savior, and my mother.
A few times each week I think, “I’ll call my dad…” before remembering that I can’t.
I pray that I have been a father my children can remember as fondly as I remember my parents.
So finally, let us honor our parents by honoring their memory when they have departed. I know it is easy for me because of who my parents were. I know my parents were not perfect. Like me, and their parents before them, they were sinners and they made mistakes. But in retrospect, it is far better to honor them by remembering them through eyes of sincere fondness.
