Courageous?

So Dayna and I went to see the new Christian film, Courageous. It’s produced by a church in Georgia that has produced other films like Facing the Giants and Fireproof. Courageous is a compelling film for families and especially for fathers. If you’re inclined to cry at movies, take some Kleenex. If you’re not inclined to cry at movies, take some Kleenex.

Courageous is a film about fathering, and it stirred me to think about the way I fathered my kids. Of course, with kids who are 31 and 29, my fathering is pretty much past tense. “I’m feeling a little guilty,” I said to Dayna as we were driving home from the theater. “I could have done better with the kids.” I don’t think I was courageous.

Having been raised in a home without a father, I was ill-equipped to be one. I didn’t read any books on the subject; I just sort of followed my gut. Sometimes that worked out pretty well. Sometimes it didn’t. Like the Saturday I was supposed to watch the kids (who were about 4 and 2 at the time). I put them down for a nap about the time the Razorback game was supposed to start. Nathan, the oldest, refused to go to sleep. He kept asking for one thing or another, kept bugging me like a mosquito in a tent, kept me from being able to watch my game. Exercising zero maturity, I didn’t deal with the issue, I got into a back and forth exchange with him—my line usually being, “Don’t make me come in there.” Being a mouthy kid, he wouldn’t shut up, so (during a game timeout) I pulled him out of his room and took him to the kitchen sink. He wants to be mouthy; I’ll deal with his mouth. I’ll wash that boy’s mouth out with soap. But dang! There wasn’t any bar soap at the sink, so I grabbed the next best thing available: dishwashing liquid. (Before you judge me you must realize that I was in a hurry; the game was about ready to start again.) He was crying. I was mad. And I was going to win. So I smeared some of that blue soapy liquid on my finger and rubbed it in his mouth. And do you know what he did? He looked up at me with tears rolling down his pudgy cheeks and blew the biggest soap bubble you ever saw! Hysterical. I got to laughing and he got to laughing and I hugged to my chest the one I was ready to exile to Siberia just moments before. Not very courageous, huh?

I wasn’t much better with my daughter. Having been raised with two brothers, I had no concept on how to raise a girl. As demonstrated in the previous paragraph, I knew all about boys (yeah, right). I knew about wrestling and playing ball, about getting dirty and eating like a pig, about bodily functions and acting crude. And I knew how to discipline a boy too. They take a spanking pretty good. I could yell at a boy when I needed too. But how do you discipline a girl? From the first time I saw her, I wasn’t sure I had it in me to yell at her. And I wasn’t sure I could spank her either. So I was kind of nervous about having a girl. Could I discipline her when needed? Could I find a way to enter her world? Other than the GI Joe I played with in the mid-60s, I’d never been around dolls in my life. And even then GI Joe was no girl doll. He was always shooting the enemy and blowing stuff up. He’d have had no trouble wiping out Barbie if he thought she was a Communist. He was one bad dude. But this girl world was different—dolls and tea parties, Kaboodles and My Little Ponies, jewelry and makeup, dresses and ribbons and lace. I was glad she liked sports—we made some connection there. But on the whole, I was out of my element and would be the whole time she was growing up. But I loved her, how I loved her and love her still! Yet what’s so courageous about that? She was easy to love.

So if I was grading myself on my daddy-work I’d have to give myself a B. I think I was generally better than average but certainly not exceptional and certainly not courageous. Truth is: both of our kids were easy to raise and both turned out well. They love God, serve Him in their churches, live responsibly, and are raising their own kids to do the same. I credit this end-product to many prayers, Dayna’s influence, and two good churches we’ve been a part of. We did do our best to show them Christ, keep them in the Scripture, and keep them in the church. We did love them unconditionally. We laughed a lot—a whole lot. And we never for a moment forgot that these two kids belong to God and are only on loan to us. The bottom line is that God was merciful, and God shaped these kids into the adults they are today—in part because of us, in part in spite of us, especially in spite of me.

I can see it now: “Let’s make a movie about John’s fathering.”

“Ok, but what will we call it?”

“How about Courageous?”

“Don’t make me laugh.”

“Then what would you call it?”

“I’d call it … Blessed.”

And so would I.

Father of the Year

The Arkansas Baptist News, a bi-monthly paper with all the news that's fit to print and some that's not, holds a contest every year around Fathers Day. The paper invites readers to write a brief essay and enter their good old dad in the "Father of the Year" contest.

So I was thinking that if the Bible had a "Father of the Year" contest, who would win the prize? You know, really good fathers, as we Americans romanticize them to be, are pretty hard to find in the Bible.

Adam could have won the award for several years in a row, I guess, but the man had no competition. And was he really all that great of a dad. Didn't one of his boys murder the other?

Noah did all right for the most part. He was a blameless man, most righteous man on earth at the time, so Noah and his family were the only ones God saw fit to save from the great flood. But after the flood, there was this strange episode about Noah getting drunk and falling asleep buck naked in his tent. His son Ham found him that way and went and told his two brothers, Shem and Japheth. Those two found a blanket, backed into the tent, and covered their father. When Noah slept off his drunk and learned what happened, he cursed his son Ham for looking on his nakedness. Ham became the father of the Canaanites, not exactly a very high class breed of people back in the day.

Abraham was pretty good, I think—at least with Isaac. Except for that little episode where Abraham almost slit Isaac's throat and burned him in sacrifice to God (a test at God's bidding, mind you), Abraham was probably a bit over-protective with this child of promise.

Isaac didn't do so well with his boys, Jacob and Esau. He played favorites with Esau and got played for chump by his other son Jacob.

And Jacob, a chip off the old block, wound up with twelve sons, playing favorites with two of them, Joseph and Benjamin, and sort of alienating the others in the process. Jacob did offer individual blessings for each of his boys though. A lot of us dads could sure do a better job of blessing our children, don't you think?

Moses is one of the three dominant figures in the Old Testament but we know virtually nothing of his kids or his fathering.

And while David was a great king, he didn't do so well at fatherhood. One of his sons raped one of his daughters. Another son killed the brother who raped their sister, and that same son later orchestrated a coup against his father—a coup he came within an inch of pulling off. And when that no good son was killed in the battle, David grieved and grieved and grieved.

Job was probably a pretty good dad. He provided well for his children and they apparently got along well with one another because they were eating together when a tornado crushed the house in which they were gathered and killed them all.

And we've got to at least tip our hats to Hosea. God told him to marry a whore as a stark example of God's opinion of His people Israel who were whoring after other gods. Hosea did what he was told. His wife Gomer bore him three children then left the family in a lurch and went right back to her whoring ways. I guess Hosea had to raise those kids on his on. And when God told Hosea to take Gomer back a few years later, he did so, setting quite an example of forgiving love for his kids.

Jump from the Old to the New Testament, and there's not many dads in there to enter in the contest. There was Joseph who more or less adopted Jesus and, except for the time he accidentally left 12-year-old Jesus in Jerusalem, apparently did well with him. But honestly, who couldn't do well with Jesus?

There's also Zebedee. He was the father of James and John. He taught them the fishing business and apparently let them go without much of a fight when Jesus called his sons to follow Him. But then again, James and John were known as "the sons of thunder." Was this a nickname about the boys or about their dad? Did their dad, perhaps, have a little temper problem he passed on to the boys? Who knows?

And there was also a dad here and there in the Gospels who brought sick children to Jesus, in hopes that Jesus would make them well. But we know so little about them it's hard to make a judgment as to the quality of their fathering.

Oh, and in Acts there was the Philippian jailer. No sooner did God save him than he invited Paul and Silas to his house in the hopes that his whole family would be saved. The Bible says they were. And really, that's about it for fathers in the New Testament.

I've got to tell you, the Bible doesn't appear to be all that interested in parading excellent fathers before our eyes. You'll not find many father role models in the pages of the Scripture. You'll find some fatherly counsel there: like, how dads are supposed to teach their kids day in and day out to love God, and like Paul's counsel for fathers not to breed rebellion in their kids but to raise them in the nurture and admonition of Christ. And, of course, Proverbs dishes out a little fatherly wisdom about disciplining the kids—"spare the rod, spoil the child" and all of that. Actually, when it comes to fathers, the Bible has more advice than role models. Most of the dads we see in the Scripture aren't all that different from most dads I know today: they are a mixture of the holy and the profane, they have their good moments and their bad moments, but mostly they just try to do the best they can with what they've got to work with in themselves and what they've got to work with in their children. So if you had a bad childhood and a father that wasn't so hot, why don't you cut him some slack and even forgive him if that's needed. And if you are a father who feels like you just haven't done enough, why don't you cut yourself some slack and just try to do a little better. I wish I could hold up a couple of fatherly models from the Bible and say, "Do it like these guys did it," but I really can't. Like or not, there just aren't many great father-figures in the Bible.

So is there no "Father of the Year" in the Bible? Well, there is one. In fact, I'm ready to make my nominee for "Father of the Year." I nominate … our Father God. He is the Father who made us, knitting us together in our mother's womb. He is the Father who saves us from our sin and keeps saving us a little more every single day, forgiving and restoring us as we have need. He's the Father who provides for our needs. He is the Father who loves us enough to discipline us when we go astray and get us back on the path that leads to life. And He's the Father who wants to be with His children so much that one day He will take us home to live with Him forever. What a great Father! He is, says the Bible, a Father to the fatherless, and He is a Father who can sympathize with any parent who ever gave up a child to death. If you want a model father to follow in the Bible look no further than to the Lord God himself. You will never live up to His standard, but at least He shows us the way. So praise be to God: the Father of the Year, the Father of All History, and the only perfect Father you'll ever know.

Would Have Been 97 Today

Storyteller and writer extraordinaire, Garrison Keillor, once told this story about one of the dads in Lake Wobegon. The town ball club was the Lake Wobegon Schroeders, so named because the starting nine were brothers, sons of E. J. Schroeder. E. J. was ticked off if a boy hit a bad pitch. He’d spit and curse and rail at him. And if a son hit a home run, E. J. would say, “Blind man coulda hit that one. Your gramma coulda put the wood on that one. If a guy couldn’t hit that one out, there’d be something wrong with him, I’d say. Wind practically took that one out of here, didn’t even need to hit it much”—and lean over and spit.

So his sons could never please him, and if they did, he forgot about it. Once, against Freeport, his oldest boy, Edwin Jim, Jr., turned and ran to the centerfield fence for a long, long fly ball. He threw his glove forty feet in the air to snag the ball and caught the ball and the glove. When he turned toward the dugout to see if his dad had seen it, E. J. was on his feet clapping, but when he saw the boy look to him, he immediately pretended he was swatting mosquitoes. The batter was called out, the third out. Jim ran back to the bench and stood by his dad. E. J. sat chewing in silence and finally said, “I saw a man in Superior, Wisconsin, do that a long time ago. But he did it at night and the ball was hit a lot harder.”

I’ve known a lot of people over the years who had a dad like E. J. Schroeder—a dad who loved his kids for sure but had a hard time showing it, a dad who found it easier to find fault than to applaud and encourage.

My dad was not exactly like E. J., but to be honest, I don’t really know what my dad was like. At least E. J. was there for his kids. For the most part my dad ceased to be an active part of my life in the middle of my third-grade year. He did have time to pass on his love of sports to his three boys. My dad was a star athlete in Lakeside High School in Lake Village Arkansas, class of ’32. And I have yellowed newspaper clippings of his exploits as a fullback and punter for Arkansas College in Batesville (now Lyons College) where he played until financial restraints forced him to drop out of college and find work (it was the Great Depression, you know). My dad taught me how to throw and catch and love any good old American game that involved a round or oblong ball. The sad thing was: after my third-grade year he never saw me play again. So, would he have been an encouraging dad or an E. J?

I suspect he would have been a little bit of both. On most visits (which weren’t numerous) he would take my brothers and I bowling. He would show us how to do it, encourage us when we did it right and correct us when we did it wrong. I remember playing catch with him on some of those rare weekend visits. “Good throw, John Scott, but get your arm up here instead of down there.” He’d throw me a grounder: “Nice catch, John Scott, but don’t reach for the ball; scoot over, get your butt down, and keep it in front of you.” I played catcher for a couple of years of my Little League career, and when my dad found out, he bought me a full set of catcher’s gear—chest protector, shin guards, mask, the works. I really liked the gift. I remember standing in front of a full length mirror in my gear, dreaming of throw-outs at second and tag-outs at the plate. But I would have traded the gear in a heartbeat just to have him in the stands to watch me play. It’s not that he didn’t want to see me play, but he lived in Little Rock, my mother had moved us to Branson, Missouri, and things were complicated. But you can see what I mean, can’t you? I think my dad had some E. J. in him for sure, but he also could be encouraging.

A few things stand out in my memory. He hurt me emotionally several times and in several ways across the years—maybe that’s the E. J. in him. But I’m choosing today to remember better things. On those rare occasions when he made a visit, especially when I was still in grade school, I would run out to his car when he pulled up in front of the house, and he would greet me with a kiss on the mouth. His family was affectionate; my mother’s family was not. Why is it that I remember a warm kiss on the mouth from my dad? Did I yearn for touch and affection (so missing in my Branson home), or did I just want my daddy? I don’t know, probably both, but I remember it.

Another memory: my dad paid for the first three years of my college education. I got married early in my senior year, and he told me that if I was old enough to get married, I was old enough to make my own way. I appreciated both the first three years and the lesson he taught me in the fourth. But it’s something from the first year that stands out most in my memory. I received a valentine from him in February that said something like, “Valentine, you’re at the head of the class.” Go figure—I don’t think my dad had ever sent me a valentine in my life. I remember thinking that was strange at the time. What prompted him to do that?

Still another thing that sticks out in my memory is the 1964 Ford Fairlane Ranchwagon. I had no car my first year in college. I needed a car for my summer job. My dad sold me his old ’64 wagon for one dollar. I got ripped off. The car was junk. My college friends called it the Ratwagon. The heater didn’t work. It had a hole in the floorboard. It broke down at least three different times between Fayetteville and Branson. I replaced most every part over the next three years. But it was a car. I had wheels. I had independence. When I traded it in for something better in December of 1977 I got 200 bucks for it. And my dad made it happen.

Another memory: my dad was dying of cancer in a Jackson, Mississippi, hospital. I was going to make the trip to see him but couldn’t get away until after Christmas. I am a pastor. I had Christmas Eve Service, then I had a wedding to do the day after Christmas. His doctor told me he expected my dad to live for another week or two. Daddy and I talked by phone the night after Christmas. I told him I was leaving the next morning to head down to see him. He said he appreciated that. We small-talked a bit (which was hard for both of us, I think). Then, just before he hung up, he thanked me for reaching out to him and he said, “John Scott, I love you. I’ve always loved you.” My aunt called me not an hour later to tell me my dad was dead. I never saw him alive again, but those words of blessing and love still linger in my mind.

Still another memory: when we were cleaning out his apartment after his death, my aunt found a written prayer folded up in an envelope in a drawer. It was a prayer for “John Scott McCallum II.” It was line after line of petition to God that “John Scott McCallum II” be the best minister he could be. It was a prayer that God give me wisdom and peace and knowledge and understanding as I carried out the ministry to which God had called me. I don’t know if it was a prayer he wrote or a prayer he copied and then just inserted my name. I do know that I still have that prayer.

And one memory more: after his death, we found in his apartment every card and picture and letter any of us boys had ever sent him—every one. The cards and letters were neatly filed away; the pictures were on the dresser, the chest, and the walls. He saved them like treasure, hoarded them like a miser. It was as if he wanted to be surrounded by reminders of his children and grandchildren, yet he couldn’t or wouldn’t just pick up the phone and call us. And I don’t know how many times after his death we heard this from people who knew him: “He was so proud of you boys. He talked about you all the time.” That was good to hear, but I couldn’t help but wish he had said such things to us while he was alive. I think it would have built some bridges. I think it would have made things different in the relationship (or lack thereof) we had with our father.

So there you have it. My daddy was a little bit of E. J. and a little bit of an encourager too. Mostly he seemed pretty clueless as to how be a dad to his kids—especially after the divorce. He wasn’t perfect by any means. I don’t idolize him in my memory. But he was my daddy. He loved me as best he could, I think. And I loved him as best I could. I write this today because this is his birthday. If he were still alive he would be 97 years old today. And even though we never knew one another all that well, even though from the time I was 8 until his death I rarely saw him, and even though he’s now been dead for 23 years, that old man is still on my mind.

The Birthday Boy

We didn’t think he’d ever get here. He was due May 23, 1980. He didn’t arrive until June 8 (thankfully, it was still 1980). And his tardy birth came after a day’s and night's worth of worthless labor that finally gave way to the C-Section that brought our Nathan David McCallum out of the womb and into the world. He is our first-born, our only son. We love him. And he turns 30 years old today.

Nathan David McCallum. There’s story behind his name. The front story is this: we named him for Nathan Larry Baker, one of my key mentors in ministry. And we named him for David McCallum, my older brother. I was named for my dad’s oldest brother; I thought I would keep some of that tradition alive. That’s the front story.

The back story is a bit different. If you know your Bible you will recognize that the names Nathan and David belong together. David was Israel’s greatest king. Nathan was a prophet in David’s court who called the king to task for his sin with Bathsheba. And in some ways that story has played out in our son’s life. There’s some David in him for sure. He’s a leader. He likes music. He loves God. He expresses his thoughts very well whether in speaking or writing. And he has some bold sinner in him too. By the same token, he’s got some Nathan in him as well: he desires righteousness, and he loves to speak God’s word into people’s lives. Nathan David McCallum—that’s our son.

And he was a joy to raise. Having grown up for the most part without a father on hand, I didn’t know fathering, but I knew boys. I was pretty sure I’d figure out how to raise a boy. And Nathan was easy. He provided us with lots of laughs. Like the time he escaped from the church nursery one Sunday night on a little scooter and rode it right down the center aisle of the sanctuary while I was preaching. Or the time when he was around eight and was the lead in a church Christmas play. He spoke his lines, was supposed to move down the steps, but caught his foot on a cord, pulling a mic stand down hard on the side of his head. Ever the consummate professional, he just rubbed his head and didn't miss a beat with his lines. He always did have a lot of poise. He was also very good at imitating voices and entertained us at countless mealtimes. He was especially good at doing Steven Urkel from Family Matters. He could do the Urkel dance and everything. He was pretty good at doing the opening of Monday Night Football too. Talented kid and pretty darn funny.

He rarely gave us any trouble either and usually did what he was told. There was one occasion that stands out in my mind about one of those rare moments when he was less than cooperative. When Nathan was about three years old, my wife was out and I was trying to watch a Razorback game while Nathan was supposed to be napping. Very few Razorback games made TV in Kansas City, so I liked to devote full attention to them when they were on. But Nathan wasn't cooperating. He kept calling me for this or that, and I kept telling him to pipe down and take his nap. It became a war of words that wouldn't have escalated if I had just gone in there in taken care of the situation. But I was more interested in my game than I was in my son at that moment. So I let it get out of hand. I got so mad at his interruptions that I decided I'd fix him good … at the next commercial. Since he was being so mouthy, I determined to wash out his mouth with soap—and not just any soap, but dishwashing soap. So I dragged him by his little arm into the kitchen, put a few drops of that slimy, blue liquid on my finger, and smeared it across his teeth and mouth. Then he looked up at me, tears streaming down his sweet, pudgy cheeks, and do you know what he did? He blew a soap bubble. Then I laughed and he laughed and I scooped him up in my arms and gave him a great big hug. We survived moments like that, Nathan and I.

We even survived the infamous California Grapes caper when he was in second grade. The kid had the nerve to steal a couple of California Grape characters (remember those claymation figures back in the mid-80s?) from a classmate at school. We found them in his room. We learned he stole them, and I lowered the boom, trying to put the fear of God and the fear of Dad in him all at once. I made him give them back. Then he had to apologize to the student he stole them from, to his teacher, and to the school principal. I gave him a spanking, a lengthy lecture about the morality of stealing, and I threatened to take him to the local jail so he could experience the last stop on the road of thievery. Then, I grounded him. You’re probably thinking, “That’s a little over the top.” You’re right. It was; I was a maniac. But the good news is that since he turns 30 today, his grounding is finally over. I have a daughter too, but for some reason, right or wrong, I was always harder on my boy.

But we have enjoyed a lot of great times too—lots of pitch and catch with the baseball, basketball under the lights on our back driveway, four downs (a football game for two we made up), lots of watching the Hogs and the Royals and the Chiefs, and plenty of video games when those games were just taking off. We played Nintendo RBI Baseball until Nathan started whipping my backside. That’s when I decided to leave video games to the younger generation. Nathan and I had a lot of fun together while he as he was growing up, and I wouldn’t trade those times for all the money in the world.

Nathan had a pretty good childhood, I think, a happy one all in all. He became a Christian as a youngster and walked with the Lord pretty closely until we moved from our home in Greenwood to our new assignment in Hot Springs. Nathan was 15 at the time and just didn’t make the adjustment all that well. He did very well in school, had lots of friends, and was even voted by his classmates as the “Best All-Around” boy in his class. But he struggled spiritually. That struggle reached its peak during his college years when he fell into some serious sin. Maybe that’s the David in him.

But there’s some Nathan in him too, and I can’t tell you how proud of him his mother and I were when Nathan rebounded from his fall to get back on the path with Jesus. Dayna and I knew he hadn’t been walking with the Lord. And we’d been praying for the Lord to draw him back. Well, the Lord answered our prayers with a sledgehammer. But that’s okay. God is a wise and loving Father who knows just what it takes to do redeeming work in the lives of His children. Nathan fell, and both God and the church caught him in the safety net of grace.

Life has had its challenges for Nathan along the way. Things have rarely been easy for him: a major move during a formative time in his life, major facial reconstruction surgery his junior year in high school, some bad decisions in college, a lost scholarship, having to grow up ahead of schedule, a rocky marriage, and finally divorce. But while life sometimes knocks Nathan down, it does not knock him out. To paraphrase Paul in 2 Corinthians 4, Nathan has this treasure in a jar of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from himself. That's why he doesn’t throw himself a pity party and doesn’t sit around moaning, “Why me?” Nope. He always gets up. He always moves forward. And God continues to work His plan in Nathan’s life.

God is using Nathan’s life these days to influence college students, young adults, and especially his own two children, Noah and Reese, who adore him. He loves them very much. It’s hard for him as a single dad, and I am often amazed that he does as well as he does in that situation. He works full time, he’s active in his church, and he takes care of two little kids half of every week. It makes me tired just thinking about it.

I’ve always believed God has great things in store for Nathan. Some of that greatness is going on now. Some has yet to be revealed. But this I know: Nathan is up for whatever God leads him to do. Maybe it will be in vocational ministry some day. Maybe it will be in volunteer ministry (which he does a lot already). Maybe it will be the raising of two kids who may end up being difference-makers of their own. But this I know: whatever God has in store for him, Nathan will rise to the challenge. By God’s good grace he always has.

And so on his 30th birthday I want to say of him what another Father once said of His Son: “This is my beloved son in whom I am well-pleased.”

Nathan, it's a joy and a gift to be your dad. Happy Birthday, son! And, God willing, many, many more.

Happy Birthday, Mother

On May 1, 1928 word spread through the little town of Branson, Missouri, that Joe and Helen Campbell had just become the proud parents of their first-born child—a daughter they named Joan Telfer Campbell. Twenty-eight years later their daughter became my mother. And if she was still living, she would be 82 years old today.

Mother was raised in a Scotch Presbyterian home. Both sides of the family had Scottish roots. My mother’s grandmother was an immigrant, coming over to the United States when she was just a little girl. With so much Scottish blood coursing through her veins, she picked up some of the traits of her family: a kind of emotional stoicism, a somewhat arms-length posture in her relationships, and a stubborn devotion to God. I don’t know if all Scots possess these traits but they were certainly in her make-up and in the make-up of her family.

Mother didn’t have an easy life. She was only a year old when, like a plague of locusts, the Great Depression swept across America devouring money and jobs and homes and property. That disaster compelled her daddy (and she says she was a daddy’s girl) to take his family to Florida in search of work. Did I mention that Joe and Helen birthed another daughter, Pat, just before they moved? Sadly, the move didn’t work out. My mother’s daddy liked to hunt. One morning he went out alone to shoot some ducks. He didn’t come home, and he didn’t come home, and he didn’t come home. Everybody was worried sick. Some men went to look for him. It wasn't long till they got the word: apparently Joe was reaching for his rifle and it fired. It hit the bull’s eye—tragically, the bull’s eye was him. He was killed on the spot. Daddy’s girl lost daddy when she was six-years-old. They had no money but by the time family and friends pitched in what they could, the family scratched just enough cash together to get back to Branson. They moved in with my mother’s grandmother and grandfather, and that’s where my mother finished growing up—in a white house with a large porch on Atlantic Avenue. Her grandparents became like second parents to her.

She graduated from Branson High School in 1946. She married Billy McCallum in 1951 (my mother called him Mack). They lived in Little Rock and started a family. David was born to them in 1953. I came along in 1956. And their third and final child, Ray, was born in 1958. I wish we had been a storybook family we appeared to be, but we were not. We were active in church. We got along with our neighbors. Both my dad and mother had good jobs. Things looked fine on the outside, but inside the family was a like a grenade with the pin pulled out. Sooner or later it was going to explode.

It exploded in 1964. I won’t go into the reasons why, but it blew our family to smithereens. My mother suffered what appeared to be a stroke. She passed out in choir at church one Sunday morning—just dropped like rock during worship. Doctors called it a nervous breakdown. The result was that she lost use of her entire right side. That’s never good under any circumstance; it’s murder if you happen to be right-handed. My mother was right-handed. Over the next few years she got better emotionally, but she never recovered her right side. If you want a picture of what it was like for her, start wiggling the fingers on your right hand while twisting your right wrist in random directions. Her right leg also moved involuntarily on her, but it was never as bad as her arm.

That was the last straw for their marriage. This all happened a few weeks before Christmas so my mother moved us three boys (in an ironic déjà vu of her own childhood) to her mother’s house in Branson on Christmas break. She told us we’d just be there for a little while so that she and daddy could work things out. I was in third grade when we moved to Branson. I graduated from Branson High School in 1974. We never moved back, and we rarely saw our daddy after that.

My mother was down as far as I would ever see her until her last days—which were very low days for her, too, but for different reasons. She could have just quit on life. She could have tried to get permanent disability. Since, by her choice, there was no money coming from my dad, she did have to get some welfare for a time. She was in one deep pit, but she didn’t stay there. With the help of her mother, a psychiatrist in Springfield, and a pastor and church in Branson, she got back on her feet again. She learned how to write left-handed (even though it was always hard to read). She learned how to drive a car again which was no small chore for a person whose right arm and right leg were of no use to her in—a hindrance rather than a help in the process. She even got back into the work force. A local lawyer from our church hired her to be his secretary. She worked for him for more than 30 years and became the fastest one-handed typist on the face of the earth. I’m a good typist but my best with two hands was slower than her best with one—her left hand no less, and on a electric typewriter without automatic margins, custom formatting, and a delete button. Incredible! (I think that must have been a God-thing.)

My mother finally retired. I don’t think she liked retirement very much. She volunteered at the local library and continued to teach the Bible in her church. She lived alone and seemed to like it that way. She always was kind of a hermit. She only got out for church and the grocery store and for occasional gatherings with some of her old classmates from the 40s. She lived a quiet life.

In her last few years dementia began to set in, and we three sons finally talked her into selling her house in Branson and moving into an assisted living complex near our youngest brother Ray and his wife Joan in Olathe, Kansas. She spent the last days of her life there. I wish I could say she died a happy person, but she did not. She usually put on her best attitude for her friends, but her sons experienced her darker side as much as anything else. She just couldn’t seem to get happy.

The last time I saw her was when we threw a little birthday party for her at her assisted living residence when she turned 80. She seemed to enjoy the day but, as always, was ready for the party to be over and for her children to go back home. She died Christmas Eve a few months later.

I wish I could say I was emotionally close to my mother, but I was not. Some of that was because of her; most of that was because of me. Sadly, she didn’t really forge emotional connections with any of her sons. Maybe it was her upbringing—her family never seemed to be emotionally connected to each other either. Maybe she’d had too much sadness in enough of her close relationships that she protected herself from future pain by avoiding the kind of intimacy that rips the heart when the relationship goes south. I don’t know. I do know I could have and should have been a better son to her.

In spite of all that, I did learn some lessons from her along the way that have shaped my life and my behavior:

• Jesus provides. In spite of barely two nickels to rub together after the divorce, my mother continued to tithe whatever she had to the Lord and the church in the belief that the Lord would provide for her family's needs. We didn’t have much, but we always had enough.

• Reading is a pleasure, and it’s hard to do too much of it.

• Jeopardy is the greatest game show in the history of television.

• Smoking stinks. She was an avid smoker till the day she died in spite of having two kinds of cancer from it. I grew up with enough second-hand smoke to kill an elephant and decided then I would never put a cigarette to my mouth.

• Church is important. She loved God her whole life long and served Him in His church until her health kept her on the sideline.

• It matters what one believes. My mother took a stand on orthodox theology that caused her to leave the Presbyterian church for awhile. She attended a more evangelical church instead. I was so happy, however, that in her last years in Branson her beloved Presbyterian church called a pastor that brought them back to their orthodox roots. This allowed her to go home to the church of her childhood and pretty much her whole life long.

• When your kids graduate from high school, let them go. I still remember my first night at college when I found a note she tucked into my Bible. It was her formal “letting me go” announcement with the promise that God had good things in store for me, that God would take care of me, and that I would always be in her prayers.

Those lessons have shaped my life in many ways. I suspect they are even shaping the lives of my grown kids in some ways too. And I’m grateful for what she gave me through those lessons.

Per her choice, we cremated her after her death. It always troubled her that she felt like she didn’t have a place to be buried. There was an understanding that she would get the last spot in the family plot in the old Branson cemetery. Her dad was buried there. Her aunt and uncle were buried there too. And my mother would get the fourth and last spot. But her younger sister died unexpectedly in 1987. Her sister’s family didn’t have much money to buy a plot, so she was buried in my mother’s spot—the urgency of the moment trumped the plan of a lifetime. She knew if she was cremated we wouldn’t have to buy a cemetery plot. That solved one problem but raised another: we didn’t know what to do with mother’s ashes. None of us boys really wanted to have them. So we made a few calls, got some special permission, and because she was in a small box rather than a large casket we were able to bury her ashes right next to her daddy after all. I think that would have made this daddy’s girl smile.

But what makes me smile is to know that she is with the Lord she loved, relieved of her sufferings, clear of mind, able to use that right hand again, and reunited forever with a dad she only knew for six short years on the earth. I’ll see her again there too. I will apologize for not being much of a son to her on earth. But I suspect she’ll say to me in heaven what she said to me on earth. “You were a great son. I raised you to live your life, not mine. I’ve always been so proud of you.” She’ll probably give me one of our awkward hugs. And then she’ll say something she probably wanted to say to me her whole life long but never could say until now: “John, let me introduce you to my dad.”

Happy Birthday, Mother. I can’t wait to meet him.

Happy Birthday, Daddy

On January 5, 1914, a newborn's cry bounced around the walls of the home on Samuel McCallum’s little farm in Union Church, Mississippi. It was a boy! Sam and his wife decided to call their new little baby William Melville—although Billy is the name that stuck. That little baby was my father. Had he survived his second round of cancer and whatever other ills might have befallen him, he would be 96 today.

My daddy did not live a storybook life. Had Shakespeare written the script, most would call his life a tragedy. There were good moments, plenty of broad smiles and laughter along the way, but on balance his life was tragic in so many ways. There was a succession of losses around his fourteenth year: his father, his mother, and his boss, who had become like a father to him, all died. His dad was a local marshal in Lake Village, Arkansas, and was killed in the line of duty. His mother couldn’t take it, got sick, left her kids in Arkansas and went home to Mississippi where she died a few years later. And his boss died of a heart attack, I think. All significant people in his life, all people he needed, all people he depended on. Now, at his formative age of fourteen, all dead or missing. And as if that wasn’t enough grief and hurt to deal with, his first wife left him while he was dodging Japanese sniper fire on the Solomon Islands during World War II. My dad found this out when he opened a letter she had written him only to find she had put a letter to her new stateside lover in my dad’s envelope. There were good times in all those years, but the weight of loss took its toll on his soul.

And that wasn’t the end of it either. Thirteen years into his marriage with my mother, she felt the need to leave him too, and she took their three sons with her. My dad was in Arkansas. The rest of us were in Missouri. And he really had no visitation rights to speak of. From 1964 till his death in 1987, I bet I didn’t see him twenty times. He did pay for my first three years of college. And after I had kids of my own, I took them to see my father, and we struck up a relationship marked by occasional phone calls until his death.

My dad was a decent, honest man, a good citizen. He was a very hard worker and an exceptional civil engineer. But he was not very good at relationships. He was fine with work relationships and casual neighborly relationships, but when it came to the people closest to him, he was all thumbs. He hurt me a lot—like when he told me he was coming to my high school graduation and later to my wedding, but didn’t show at either one. Like when he said he was coming to spend a few days with my family and see my kids but called me the day I was to pick him up at the airport to say he wasn’t coming. He was no better with my two brothers than he was with me. Tragic.

I did talk to him the day cancer took his life. I told him I was coming to see him, but it would have to wait until after Christmas (a busy time for a pastor). He told me in our last conversation that he had always loved me. And in spite of so many things we needed to say to one another, that was the last time we ever talked. After his death we found every card and picture we had ever sent him scattered about his apartment. He cherished those things, and we never really knew if he cared at all. People who knew him told us how proud he was of us boys and how he talked about us often. It really looked like he was as hungry for a relationship with his sons as we were for a relationship with our father, and yet none of us really knew how to make that happen. Tragic.

As I’ve matured I’ve learned to better understand why my dad was the way he was. He had so much loss and what he must have felt was so much betrayal in his life that he just couldn’t or wouldn’t trust people. He wouldn’t let people in. He wouldn’t allow anyone to get very close. He was protecting himself—ironically, protecting himself from the very thing that could have saved him in so many ways. Tragic.

Having grown up with a father like him, I tried to do a better job with my kids. I think I did all in all. But like him (and my mother too—whose life was also marked by much tragedy) I’m very slow to let people into my life and I find it very hard to get too close with anyone. It would be easy to be bitter about these things. But I’m not bitter.

In fact, I’m grateful—scarred in many ways, but grateful. I’ve come to accept the fact that in light of the circumstances of my dad’s life and the demons with which he wrestled, he did the best he could. I am grateful for that. And I’m grateful that because my dad claimed Jesus as His Savior, one day we will see each other again. One day, we will truly get to know one another. And we will do that in the place where the tragedies of this world are swallowed up by a joy that lasts forever. So, Happy Birthday, Daddy. We will talk again.