My Take

DiVoran Lites

I started walking in 1939
And thank the good Lord I haven’t stopped yet.
Mama and Daddy were there for my first steps
And I was with Daddy for his last one.

Believe me, he walked plenty in his lifetime
He walked to school,
Walked to fish and to hunt
Walked on his paper route
Walked to his girlfriend’s house
Then he went into the war
And marched and slogged through mud up to his ankles.

He bought a business and stood behind the bar
Listening to the problems of his customers.
Once he walked down off Pike’s Peak after he and his friend,
Sweak Jeske got caught in a downdraft in a Piper Cub.
God was with them that day.
All Daddy got was a ruined plane and a chipped ankle bone.
His friend walked down the mountain and brought help.
After Daddy retired he walked at least a mile every day.
He showed me how to walk in the Florida woods
Being new here, I was afraid to explore,
It has been my favorite trail for over fifty years.

Dad didn’t usually attend church, but when he was 87
He went back to a Christian Church like the one he had attended with his mother, Marie.
There he either received Christ or renewed his commitment.

It was around that time that he had an accident and had to go into assisted living.
I was present when the therapist came to teach him to
Walk again, and they asked me to help by
Standing at the end of line of support bars, and calling him to come.
It was just like teaching a baby to walk,
“Come on, Dad, you can do it!”
It took all his strength and was all a therapist and a nurse could do
To get him out of his wheel-chair.
He looked up at me with a light in his face
And took a step.
My heart soared, but then
He fell, supported, back into the chair.
But it was not for lack of willingness.
His brain just didn’t have control of his
Body anymore.

Three years after they tried to get him up and walking
I was at my church in Florida for an evening sing-along
We sang “Draw Me Nearer,”
And in my mind’s eye, the hymn book I was holding
Disappeared and I saw Dad walking toward me.
He said, “Would you walk a ways with me?”
I knew then that he was in Heaven.
Early the next morning my sister-in-law called
And told me he had died the night before.
Good night, Daddy.
We’ll see each other again, some glad morning.

Ivan and DiVoran

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Tags: Dad, Father's Day, Remembering dad