RIP Dad

Sorry for your loss. Prayers out for strength and comfort. I know how it feels to have no one to look to for wisdom and answers. How quickly we take their place for our kids. Far too soon.
 
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Man that's hard to hear. My dad just turned 72 and I can't imagine not being able to pick up the phone to chat with him. Praying for you guys.
 
Mine passed in 2010 at 70. I thought that was too young.... Sorry to hear of your Dad passing. It's tough for sure. I found myself picking up the phone to call him about something for months. I think about him every day, 10 years later. It's much easier but I still miss him like crazy.
 
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Sorry to hear this. Its been over 15 years since my dad passed, so I know what you are going through.
 
Man, hate to hear that. My condolences to you and your family.

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So sorry to hear that. Went through the same thing with FIL during my kids soccer game. Prayers to you and the family. Way too young...
 
Sorry for your loss. Prayers for peace and comfort for you and family during this difficult times.


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Man, this hit me hard today when I read it. Steve’s dad was a good man. I had the pleasure of knowing and working with him for about 3-4 years. I can’t imagine what you and your family must be going through Steve. If there’s anything, anything at all, that you need, don’t hesitate to ask.


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I have posted this before. Still holds true. Sorry for your loss.

Grief-never-ends-but-it-changes.-Its-a-passage.jpg
 
Real sorry to hear this. 61 seems way too young. My parents are both getting to the point where I worry every time my caller ID shows somebody is calling from their house.
I noticed you said "dad's wife" meaning she's not your mom. But your dad wanted her in the family, so try to make sure she's doing okay too. she was probably counting on another 20+years that she just lost.
 
It is hard to lose a loved one but remember the good times and really be happy that he went doing something he enjoyed and didn't suffer. I hope all of us here will be so lucky.
 
Very sorry for your loss sir.
 
Condolences to you and your family.
 
Praying for comfort and peace for your family through this devastating loss. I am grateful for the relationship you had with your father. May that be a source of strength for you through these difficult days.
 
Deepest sympathies sir. I’ve been there but bedside. I was afraid. I was ashamed I didn’t see him more over the last few weeks because of the drive. It hurts. An angel has risen.
 
We said our goodbyes last Friday. As much as I loathe funerals and weddings (sorry to lump those two together), his funeral helped “bookend” things and give closure.

Dad’s eulogy that I put together:


For those of you that didn’t know Dad, you’re sort of looking at him. For those that don’t know me, I’m his oldest son, Steve.

Dad and I shared more than the same legal name; we sounded similar, looked similar, worked in a similar field, and followed similar life arcs (things like number of kids and starting new roots in a new city/state).

This used to bug me when I was younger—it was frustrating to get several minutes into a phone call before realizing the person was calling for the OTHER Steve, or vice-versa for him. This led to more than one interesting mix-up as girls entered the picture.

As I’ve matured it’s become far less of an annoyance and much more a badge of honor to bear his resemblance. Back in Florida, it was fun to run into contractors that had dared to cut corners on a different project under dad’s watch and worried: would his son bring the same hellfire down on them, too? I could never muster Dad’s intensity, but it was fun to ride on his reputation coattails as long as I could.

Here in North Carolina living once again in the same town together, he was my all-seeing personal quality control agent that was not afraid to call someone “above me” if the wrong that he had found couldn’t be righted to his liking.

You’ve not fully experienced what your career has to offer until you’ve had to preface a phone call to a colleague with “I’m giving you a head’s up that you may get a call from my dad…and I can’t be held responsible for what he says.”

Dad wore a lot of different hats for me and a lot of other people: mechanic, baseball coach, carpenter, teacher, inspector, Cub Master, and many others. He was an all-or-nothing guy—there was no lukewarm.

When he got into paintball with me, he went over the top with gear including a head-to-toe desert camo getup that earned him the battlefield nickname of Stormin’ Normin’ after Desert Storm’s famous leader, General Norman Schwarzkopf.

The ’69 Mustang that we built in my teenage years had more hand-made performance modifications than I could count. So many, in fact, that there’d often be a phone call to Dad from someone around town who claimed to have seen his teenage son hot-ridding in traffic—one of the benefits of growing up in small town where everyone knew everyone.

Dad’s tendency to go full-bore hardcore met its match in recent years when he helped me coach Little League baseball. On more than one occasion I had to remind him NOT to use phrases like “suck it up, Nancy” or “does somebody need the whambulance?!” He soon figured out that the world of coaching kids had changed since the 90’s.

He was most-often a teacher to me—both in showing me the right way, and yes, sometimes the wrong way to do things. But the majority of the core knowledge that rattles around in my head today was not put there by a fancy sheepskin. It was dad who taught me the strength of a piece of lumber is greater on its edge than its width; that a drainage problem can be solved with enough fall; or that if you don’t get good compaction in your base, whatever you’re building on it will fall apart.

Steve , Sr left his professional mark on the world by way of managing countless construction projects that keep Orange/Seminole Counties, Florida and Union County, North Carolina alive. Every day, millions of people use the infrastructure that he held contractors accountable to build the right way. Never once did I hear him ask for credit for any of it. He didn’t have a college degree nor did he have commas and letters after his name, but when someone wanted their project built the right way, on budget and on time, they didn’t call the Ghostbusters; they called Dad.

Dad’s later years saw him being a pretty darn good Grandpa to my boys. From helping me build a fort for them, to bringing them gifts that typically required my direct supervision for fear of shooting an unwanted hole in something—that’s the classic definition of a Grandpa and he lived up to it.

I watched Dad go through good times and bad. While we may not have had an emotional relationship, we still had a connection that understood what the other was feeling. We didn’t communicate it well, but we cared about what each other was going through.

There’s a piece of me gone with dad—a hole that no one will fill—but I find peace in the fact that Dad knew about Jesus. It took “bad times” to convince him to listen to the Holy Spirit, but he got there. Like all of us, he was far from perfect, including his walk with Jesus. I’m thankful that it’s NOT Sunday morning attendance records nor Bible study achievements that determine your ability to know and be known by Jesus. Those things are important, but Dad kept his infamous stubbornness even in his faith.

It helps to picture my Grandpa waiting for Dad with hand-drawn maps, prints, and schematics of how Heaven is laid out and who does what around here. Sorry for the inside family joke—come find me later and I’ll draw you an explanation.

Even just in this week after his death, I’ve already seen positive signs of inspiration come from such a tragedy. Some have asked for suggestions of ways to honor Dad, to which I had no answer…until now. If you’ve got that curious itch of faith, scratch it. Go find out.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

Matthew 7:7-8
 
Thank you for sharing his eulogy. You wrote such a great picture of him.

I lost my dad 7 years ago suddenly, and I know the hole that is left. I cant even imagine how proud he would be of me for pursuing this new hobby. I’ve thought quite a few times how I want to call him up and tell him how well I shot a rifle on Sunday.

Thoughts to you as you and your family learn to live this new normal.
 
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