I
still call my dad most every morning. While I’m driving to work, he’s slowly
but surely making his way to breakfast in the retirement facility where Dad and
Mom now live.
I
sometimes have difficulty communicating on the phone with Dad since his hearing
is not what it used to be. (Dad just turned 89.) So, I was encouraged when Dad
told me he was getting new hearing aids; I thought that would make our
conversations easier.
“I
just got my new hearing aids,” he proudly announced one morning not long ago.
“Great,”
I responded, “how are they working?”
“What?
What did you say?” he asked.
I’ve
learned to repeat what I’m saying and let Dad talk over me. I figure he
deserves it; after all, not so long ago, I was the know-it-all teenager who
once ignored his wisdom and tried to talk over his words.
Our
most frequent morning topic is the weather: what it is where he lives in
Lubbock, Texas, and what we are having here in Kentucky.
“It’s
damp here,” I informed him one morning.
Apparently
misunderstanding the word “damp,” for “camp,” Dad launched into a story of how
he attended camp when he was 11 or 12 years old.
I
dared not redirect him: It was a story worth hearing.
Dad
told of being at church camp in the early 1930s. The place was Falls Creek
Baptist Assembly, located in the Arbuckle Mountains of Oklahoma. Dad’s uncle,
Kenneth Harrell, had volunteered to take several boys from Fletcher Baptist
Church to Falls Creek. Falls Creek Assembly would grow to become the largest
youth encampment in the United States. When Dad attended, they actually camped
outside in tents and bathed in a reservoir.
One
warm, sultry night, at the close of one of those camp meetings in the large
outdoor tabernacle, the camp evangelist called for the young people to make a
decision for Christ. “Step forward and make public your decision,” he
admonished the young people. Dad wanted to walk down the aisle to the front of
the assembly but was hesitant and a little afraid. An observant camp counselor,
seeing the anguish in Dad’s face, came and stood next to Dad and offered to
walk forward with him if that’s what Dad wanted to do. He did, and that marked
the beginning of my father’s walk with Jesus Christ.
After
Dad had told me the story, I was dumbfounded. Here was one of the most
important events in my Dad’s life, and I’d never heard it. All those years when
Dad’s hearing was as all but perfect, I’d never stopped long enough to inquire
about how he had come to his faith, and Dad was on the move too. He has always
been a doer. What I knew of his faith I learned mostly by observation: his
prayer before meals, his church attendance anytime the doors were open, and his
volunteering as a dentist to do mission work in third world countries.
But
that day, listening to Dad, I felt like I had gotten to the heart of the
matter--- the place where it had all begun. And I’d learned of it because of
his hearing loss and his misunderstanding of one simple word.
And
now I have a story I will forever treasure, one I will pass on to my kids.
That’s
just what I’ll do, maybe this Father’s Day--- before I grow forgetful and hard
of hearing.
