Dad's Last Visit

It was 2 in the morning and Cyndy and I (now with 2 kids) were living in Coppell, Tx...a suburb just north of Dallas. I had just started a job as an insurance adjustor for Farmers Insurance and, to be honest, I was struggling. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it was a good job. They even gave me a new car! But it just didn’t feel right. I had moved to Dallas hoping to get a teaching job as a band director. But the competition was steep, and I didn’t seem to have the right connections. So, I found this job. And with Cyndy’s job...she was a typesetter...and mine, we were doing pretty good. We had moved out of an apartment and rented a 3-bedroom house in a nice suburb. But early that morning I was sitting at the kitchen table, unable to sleep. Something just wasn’t right. As hard as I tried, I could not see myself ten years down the line as the “claims manager” for the Dallas/Los Colinas branch of Farmers Insurance. It just wasn’t the Brook I knew.

And so, as I sat there at the kitchen table wondering how long I could keep going and what my next move was, I was startled into reality by a knock on the door. As I opened it, I did a double take. It was Mom and Dad! They had gotten up early yesterday morning and decided to come pay us a visit! Now, maybe that doesn’t sound like much of a statement to you. But to me, it was amazing because my mom and dad lived in Howard, SD and drove an old 1964 VW bug. And in 1988 that was still a pretty old car! Mom and Dad had driven 19 straight hours in late July to get to our doorstep. The temperature outside at 2 a.m. was 89 degrees, but during the heat of that day it had been 103. That 1964 VW had no air conditioner!

Mom and Dad stayed 3 or 4 days and then got ready to head east to see my brother, Erin, and his wife, Grace, in... get this...Maryland! As they got ready to head out, I remember two things about their departure. One was the shape of Dad’s tires...bald! I told Dad about it, and he went out with me to check them. He placed his hand on each tire and felt the tread. And then said, “Brook, these tires still have a few thousand miles on them. We can make it to Erins and then home.”  The second thing I remember is my dad reaching in his pocket and handing me a folded check. “Just in case you need it.”  This was a ritual with my dad. Even if he didn’t have any money in the bank, he always offered the check. None of us ever cashed it. It was the thought that counted.

That Sunday, Cyndy and I went to worship at the United Methodist Church in Coppell, Tx. We hadn’t been in a while. As I sat in the pew holding Cyndy’s hand, and holding Ben and Cassie on my lap, tears came as I realized just how lost I had been this last year. The scripture reading that day was the story of the prodigal son. And, although my story wasn’t nearly the same as the one in the Bible, I somehow had this strange feeling that I had been lost. And that somehow Mom and Dad’s visit had come at just the right time in my life.

That spring, while standing on a roof in Highland Park (I was a property adjuster), I glanced over to my left and noticed a high white steeple on a little chapel on the campus of SMU. For some reason, it seemed to be drawing me in... calling my name. After I finished up with the insurance claim I was working on, I drove over to find the chapel. It was the chapel for the Perkins School of Theology, our United Methodist seminary in Dallas, Tx. As I sat in that chapel, I was overwhelmed with a strange feeling. In the United Methodist church, we have a name for this feeling: “a heart being strangely warmed.”  I felt somehow home there. 6 months later, I was enrolled in seminary.

Late that summer, just before I entered seminary, my dad died of an inoperable brain tumor.

That knock on the door at 2 a.m., had been his last.

Sometimes, in the middle of the summer, I find myself still hoping for one more knock from my dad. But then I look up and give thanks as I marvel at a love that had run so hard for me that one last time...helping me find home.

Thanks, Dad. Love you, too.

Your grateful son, Brook