2. high praise or commendation
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For Dad's Eulogy at his Funeral October 19th, 2015
I love you mom.
In a college psychology class we were studying the theory of Alfred Adler on the significance of first and early memories.
We were challenged to go back in our long term memory to see what could be remembered.
According to Adler, first memories were meaningful because they held the kernel...held the kernel of who we are as individuals. There is a reason why we hold on to certain memories and others we just discard.
My earliest memory is: Simply holding on to dad's hand and walking, crossing RR tracks, to what I thought was the Post Office.
I asked dad about that memory. He said, basically, that it was not possible, the walk to the Post Office in Algonac didn't include crossing RR tracks.
After talking a bit more, dad realized it might had been possible---but in Bismarck, not Algonac.
I would have just been 2 1/2 years old.
Early memories are preciously kept because they make sense and fit into the essence of how we see ourselves, how we see others, and how we view the world around us: The way I saw me, saw others, and the world around me because, yes..... Dad was holding my hand.
Another memory: Dad's hands trusted me, a little 8 year old kid, to "manicure" his fingernails...OK, it wasn't a manicure...but he let me trim his fingernails with clippers, let me comb his hair...I think it was a way of...
Dad holding my hand.
Early memory: We had just moved into the new parsonage in Algonac. I was about 11 years old. I was talking to a friend on the kitchen phone. (You know, you remember, a pale yellow phone attached to the wall with a receiver and a 15 foot cord). Anyway, Dad had his hat and jacket on standing in the kitchen. I hung up the phone and he was just standing there looking at me... and he simply and gently said: "Janice, I know you like the back of my hand."
Dad's hands.
When young I would observe, in wonder, how Dad's hands raced across green keys on his Royal typewriter, pounding out his weekly sermons..sermons only he could write with his hands which were connected to his heart.
Dad's hands.
With fascination I absorbed and locked into memory the image of Dad's hands playing and making music with the fiddle; his hands did not only hear the notes and abide to his commands, but they listened to the beauty of the beat, the rhythm, and the melody of song...
I watched how Dad gestured with his hands as he then preached a sermon. His movements always in concert with needed emphasis, always open with compassion, always hands beckoning those to come to Christ's love.
Dad's hands.
In Ecclesiastes, chapter 9 it says: "Whatever your hands find to do, verily, do it with all your might."
Dad came by this admonition naturally, whether it was a wave to a stranger, a firm handshake of warm greeting, or even to his garden, toiling and tending , toiling and tending with gracious might.
The night Dad died, I was the one holding his hand...remembering how he had, and still has held my hand all my life...like my first memory, his goodness of example, his compassion, and his love for me and his Lord will remain always in the deepest part of my core, of my heart.
In the Psalms it is written, "He who has clean hands and a pure heart...shall receive a blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation."
Dad, we couldn't count the number of people you have touched...you and Susie both; I'm sure Susie knows what I'm talking about because it was the same for her right to the end when you held her hand.
Dad's hands.
But this I know to be true.
Dad, I am grateful that you held my hand, and all the many things you taught me through word AND deed...they will always be a part of me...you will forever abide in the core of who I am...
And now...
May the Lord keep you, Dad, everlastingly, in the peaceful hollow of HIS hands.