A Pretty Ordinary Death

Our Dad died yesterday (Monday).  He died in his own bed, quietly, at peace, and with Mom, Tony (my older brother) and me around him.  We kissed him good-bye and then he was gone.  A pretty ordinary death for a pretty ordinary man who lived a pretty ordinary life, a life distinguishable only in that it was a life lived in faith and with extraordinary loyalty.  These two traits are what set dad and so many others like him apart, I think.  Nothing fancy or fanciful about Pete Vis – outside of always trying to do the right thing and raising children committed to the same ideal.  What you saw is what you got – a principled, opinionated man who embarrassed his two sons on many an occasion by saying what was on his mind no matter the cost.  It didn’t matter if you were his best customer (dad and mom ran a small town grocery store), the town tough guy, the mayor, the preacher or whomever else, Dad spoke his mind.  And God help the hypocrite, because if there was one thing Dad could not stomach was anyone who acted as if he/she was above sin, or in any way better than any other sinner.

To be sure, like all pretty ordinary men, Dad has his demons, but he owned them, and fought them, and even when beaten by them, he would fight on.  What I admired most about my father was his honesty concerning his own weaknesses, something pretty rare, I think.  And because of this, the longer he lived the stronger he grew, until, in his final days he had the strength to die without a word of complaint or a hint of fear.  They say that when you come to your last days, you are stripped of all the masks you’ve worn, all the pretense wrapped around you in life, the collected baggage is blown away, and what is left is who you are at the core of your being.  If this is so, then our father was, at his core, a man of great courage and uncommon goodness.  Of him mom would say, “He’s so good, so good.”  And he was good, our Dad.  Pete Vis was a good man.  If you and I can have that said about us after we are gone, well, that’d be good enough, wouldn’t it?

My brother and I watched the women who cared for my dad in the assisted-living home come to say good-bye to him.  The tears they shed were testimony to the goodness of the man for whom they wept.

Dad is gone.  And as will be true of each of us, all that is left of Dad is that which is buried inside those left behind, especially our children and grandchildren.  Dad’s circumstances were such that he was not able to invest in his own education, so he invested in ours, and in our children’s.  Dad only had an eighth-grade education.  He had to leave school and work so as to help his family.  Both my brother and I graduated from college and have advanced degrees.  Each of our children has done the same.  Between us all, Tony and me plus our five children, there are seven master’s degrees, a degree in medicine, and one soon to be earned Ph D in the Old Testament.  Now there are many factors involved in this, and many people who contributed to these achievements, but none or no one more important than our Dad.  Dad would be the first to say that all this education is worthless if not used to help others in some way or another.  And so in Dad’s wake come four pastors, a school social worker, a doctor, and a professor of religion.  Not bad, Dad, not bad at all.

Dad loved Jesus, by the way.  I won’t make a big deal out of that, because for Dad that was simply a given.  His father and mother gave it to him, and he gave it to us, and we give it to our children and they to theirs and the gift goes on giving – right?

Thanks Dad.