As I’ve been thinking about my dad’s life over the past week since he’s passed, I can’t help but thinking about a book I read a few year’s back called “Unbroken.” Perhaps some of you have read it, or maybe even seen the movie about an American Naval Aviator during WWII who ends up as a captive in a Japanese POW camp.  Every time you get the feeling it can’t possibly get any worse for this guy, something else happens to him.  But as the title signifies, the guy Louis Zamperini’s spirit remained steadfast, unbroken by the flurry of misfortune. 

While my dad was neither a veteran nor a pilot, he was no stranger to adversity and like Louis Zamperini, he always maintained a steadfast unbreakable spirit. 

At the age of six, our dad was struck in the head with a piece of steal rebar at a construction site carelessly thrown by another playmate. Not expected to live, he survived. Not expected to walk again, he stood up and defied the prognosis because he simply decided that he must do it. Crippled for life, partially paralyzed on his left side he left the hospital only to be greeted by a recently widowed mother. For his father had died in the Veterans home the same year he left the hospital. A veteran of World War I whom our dad described as a good man, but changed by the war.

With his father gone and our grandma struggling to provide for ten kids, my dad along with several of his brothers and sister ended either in foster care or adopted out to other families.  His three younger siblings he would never see again.

Our dad had kind of a quirky sense of humor and used to joke that he was born during the depression, and had been depressed ever since, but as you all probably know and have heard, these were very difficult times in America. And as a boy born to a poor family with a widowed mom, my dad witnessed, firsthand, the disintegration of his family that poverty of those times far too often brought.

But I believe that God blessed my dad with a resiliency capable of withstanding great adversity. 

In High School, our dad would again have to overcome hardship as he was afflicted with Bells Palsy, a viral infection which causes one side of your face to droop.  And though it wasn’t a permanent condition, it did contribute to his decision to drop out of high school. 

However, he quickly rebounded and spent the next twenty years working in various jobs.  A night janitor at a movie house, a body shop trainee, a gas station attendant when there still was such a thing, a host of other jobs and most importantly, a cigar store clerk where he met our mother.  

In cleaning out his things, my sister found a journal where he had noted that meeting his wife, our mother led him to the most stable time in his life.  They were married for nearly 40 years before our mother passed in 2001.  One of our dad’s life goals was to be a good father. 

I believe he accomplished that. 

And though our dad never did finish High School, he became a lifelong student and loved to read books and newspapers and could easily hold his own in frequent hotly debated political discussions around the family table. 

He was also a great encourager.  I don’t think he ever missed a game that I played and sometimes to a fault, even when I was looking for some constructive criticism for a game that I played, his answer was always, “you did a good job son.”

And as far as loyalty goes, he was a life long Lions fan.  That ought to tell you something.  He loved watching Tiger baseball, U of M, and Michigan State. 

He also loved the movies. For many years, he was a walking encyclopedia of all things Hollywood.  

But, ultimately our dad was an overcomer, he came from an environment where he had very few good role models of fatherhood, and yet, he was committed to being a good father.  He was an honest, honorable, loyal man who encouraged us to be the best that we could be.  He was also a man who persevered through a barrage of some of life’s most difficult challenges.

In his later years, our dad often pondered his purpose in this world.  Generally, I told him what I tell anyone who asks this question, first and foremost, to reconcile with God through his Son Jesus Christ and secondly, to him specifically that I believed his life purpose was to break the cycle of trauma that he himself and his family was subjected to and show that anything is possible if we never give up or quit life. And even if it wasn’t always obvious to outside observers, our pop’s persevered in this life and taught us to do the same.

And finally, although our dad learned to love many bible verses later in life, if I could sum up his long life in one particular verse, it would be this. 

For You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined. You brought us into the net; You laid affliction on our backs. You have caused men to ride over our heads; We went through fire and through water; But You brought us out to rich fulfillment.

Psalm 66:10-12