I Should Have Been a Rock Star- Zen Moment 7

My dad loved to sing.
He sang in church all the time. At times, he even sang duets with MOM, or as a trio with Mom and Aunt Bonnie.
His favorites were always the old classic hymns. They would sing “The Old Rugged Cross” and the three of them would often sing “Surely Goodness and Mercy Shall Follow Me…”… always to our youthful whispered jokes about which one of them was Goodness and Mercy since Mom was named Shirley.
At times, Dad would sing alone.. Something I always found to be very brave since I have a voice that creaks and cracks. The tune he sang most often was “How Great Thou Art.” His strong but untrained voice would boom out the lines “I see the Stars, I hear the rolling thunder. Thy power throughout the universe displayed” with all the conviction and passion of a real believer.
That he was.

It was comforting for Mom and dad to break into song as we drove in the car. Many a night as I dozed in the bad seat, it was a warm feeling of security as they sang together the familiar hymns.

As Dad grew older and ventured into his 80’s, a new song leader arrived at the church with newer songs and some different tempos. Dad had never been able to read music, and with his diminishing sight felt as if his chances to sing were being taken away. It left him angry and frustrated. He even walked out of choir practice at one time, according to Mom, because that wasn’t the way those songs were supposed to be sung. He sat in the car alone, singing his songs loudly in his very own tired and trusted beat and timber.

The most memorable, and something that has stuck with my sons and my wife, is that in the last years of his life, my dad one day, while the family was gathered in the house, kids running here and there, TV blaring and adults gossiping, dad took a break from watching NFL games to limp slowly outside and sit alone on the front porch swing.
His knees ached and his vision was blurred for everything except to grumble at the TV referees, but sitting there on the porch, he slowly rocked back and forth and begun to sing.
He sang strong and loud the old hymns that had given him so much comfort through out his life. The same songs that a young man sang as he shoveled grapes in a California field in the 1930’s. The same words that had buoyed him in the hold of a ship crossing the Pacific towards the war in Asia. The same ideas that made him the man he was.
Dad didn’t need a pew, or choir or song leader to sing the praises he so fervently believed. It was just between him and his God while we listened from the inside of the house.