Goodness

Last year I was full of New Year's resolutions. Goals, hopes, aspirations, dreams for the coming year. I don't have a laundry list of ideas this year. I've just had one thing stirring around my heart. I want to be a good person. I want to be like my father in his goodness. The minister at my wedding, Reagin, recently called my father "larger than life." I think Dad was larger than life because people had fun around him as he loved to tease. He made people feel special, important. Dad was quick to forgive mistakes and followed his own moral compass without fail. I always say to Jared that it would be fun to be a like a puppy dog and never question whether you're wanted around or not. That's how I felt with Dad. I never questioned whether or not he wanted me around. Someone wrote this poem by Henry Van Dyke on a card after my father's death. I absolutely love it.

"Gone from my Sight"

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone"

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,
hull and spar as she was when she left my side.
And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.
And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone,"
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

And that is dying.