My Amazing Father

John David Whitaker
May 22, 1939--April 4, 2012

I have thought a lot of my daddy, John Whitaker, in the past few days.  Memories that I had forgotten I possessed came back to me.  I thought of instances and events I hadn’t recalled in years.  I realized one thing after going through a lifetime of moments with my dad.  In all the memories, one quality characterized this amazing man’s life.  Laughter.  If I had to use just one word to describe my Daddy, it is laughter.  He loved to make people laugh and he loved to laugh himself.  He smiled all the time, enjoyed a good joke, flirted outrageously, and always had a good word for whomever he encountered. He liked to tickle his own soul as well as the souls of others.  He enjoyed feeling good and making the people in his life feel good too.

His easy going nature and good humor stemmed from the fact that my father enjoyed life and the people in it. He lived it fully and appreciated every aspect of living.  More importantly, however, he maintained a deep and profound gratitude regarding the blessings in his life and he expressed that gratitude through his joyfulness. If he said it once, he said it a thousand times how very lucky he had been throughout his lifetime and how lucky he continued to be. 

He only recalled good memories from his childhood.  He always described growing up in Youngstown, Ohio as an idyllic existence.  A close family, good friends,  and a friendly neighborhood helped to mold my father into someone who always said thank you for the good things in his life, and someone who always focused on the positive aspects of it.  Rarely did he indulge in negativity.  Even though he suffered through his own father’s death at a young age, Daddy always appreciated his childhood and his family and used those memories as a touchstone and compass for the remainder of his life.

He had such a positive, joyful soul and only talked about the good things that had happened to him. He described his time in the Air Force in glowing terms, even his tour of duty in Vietnam had a positive spin.  My Daddy chose not to dwell on the bad moments, only the good ones.  He told people all the time how fortunate he had been to have such a good career and one that he enjoyed tremendously. 

Whenever he spoke of his family…my mother, my sister and I, my father could wax eloquent for an extended period of time.  His family meant the world to him and he meant the world to us.   He loved my mother with the deepest, most abiding love I have ever seen and he would praise her to anyone who stood still long enough to hear him. He loved my sister and I equally as deeply and never failed to tell us that.  He liked to make us happy however he could and I am so grateful to be able to say he succeeded on a regular basis.  For example, even if we had fixed the worst dinner ever, he would always tell us that it was the best he had ever had and then he'd thank us for taking such good care of him.  He wanted to make us feel good and he wanted to show us his gratitude.  My mother was the soul of our family, but my father was its heart.  And such a positive, complimentary, joyful, happy heart it was. 

My father loved his sons-in-laws and his grandchildren tremendously too.  When my sister and I brought our prospective husbands home to meet the folks, Momma scrutinized them and Daddy embraced them.  They became his sons almost from the beginning because he was the type of person who believed if someone or something made a person he loved happy, then he would be happy to love them as well.  His grandchildren brought him joy and he constantly purchased them toys and knickknacks from the senior center thrift store, just to put a smile on their faces.  It was kind of cruel though as they always required batteries, made huge amounts of noise and rarely had an off switch. He would sit and talk with them after dinner and tell them funny stories from his youth.  The kids always made my dad smile, even if he was yelling at them while he was smiling. (Well, I know he was smiling on the inside at those times….)

He loved and appreciated his many friends too.  He spoke of them constantly, regaling my sister and I with stories about them.  He also loved his music.  Music brought him so much pleasure.  It would drive us crazy to have him turn on his music in the middle of a conversation with us, or to hear for the hundredth time about how wonderful the latest production of the Alamogordo Musical Theater had been, but we knew that it made him so happy that we listened without resentment and waited to pick up the conversation later.

All of this that I have shared with you simply testifies to kind of spirit my father embodied.  It also illustrates well the lessons he taught my family.  He taught us to love the little things in life and to appreciate them and to express gratitude for them.  He taught us to laugh loudly and long and often.  He taught to be positive about life and to focus on the happy moments, the joyful memories, and the love and beauty that surrounds us all the time, if we just look for it.  My father showed my sister and I how to not sweat the small stuff, to not only live and let live, but to do it well and fully and to embrace the people in our lives with a happy spirit and an inclusiveness that isn’t very common these days.

I will miss my father every day for the rest of my life.  I will miss laughter, his thoughtfulness, his compliments, his friendly and happy nature.  I will miss watching him flirt with waitresses, nurses, and even my friends.  I will miss his stories, his music, and his overwhelming generosity of spirit.  The only consolation I have at this time is the knowledge that he is in a happier place, reunited with his beloved wife, parents, and family that has gone on before.  However, I will take all that he has taught us about how to live life well and fully and move forward.  I will focus on the positive, the good memories, and the joy that he brought to all of us. I will honor him by being happy, by making others happy, and most especially by laughing loudly, long and often.