Thanks, Dad
By: Kim Ware
Tags: Dads, Farming, Family, Eulogy, Fathers Day

Spoken at my Dad’s funeral on June 13, 2019

I am not fond of public speaking. But I’m a songwriter, and songwriters want deeply to be understood, and to understand others. So I’d love to share a little about my relationship with my dad, and how I came to understand him — and I’ll try to be brief, because as I wrote recently in a song inspired by him, he was “a man of few words, but they always made sense.” He would want me to make this quick. Oh, and I should apologize to Dad for the long obituary. And all of this. I know it’s more than he’d need or expect. In his final days, Dad would often say “that’ll do,” when he had enough — of us moving him around trying to get him comfortable, feeding him … we’ve gone way beyond his “that’ll do” with today, but know that this is actually us scaling back!

You know those very early childhood memories that you’re not sure are a true memory or just feels like one because the story has been told to you so many times? Well I have one of those, and while it has been told to me many times, I’m pretty sure it’s a real memory, because I can still see it so clearly. I had to have been about 4 years old. We lived over on 74 across from the fruit stand. Now at the time, I thought of my dad as a mysterious superhero. He would get up early in the morning, work in the orchard or the fruit stand all day, then come home for supper. And do that every single day. So compared to time spent with my mom, my time with Dad was pretty limited. Basically if we wanted to see him we went to the fruit stand. But I never felt like he was absent, because from a very early age, I felt loved, provided for, and very safe. So I remember when I was about 4 years old, someone had come to visit me and my mom. I can’t remember who, or anything about the visit, other than when they were leaving, I remember saying “Wait a minute and you can see my Daddy.” I think they laughed, and went on about their way. Which was fine, it would have been hours before Dad would get home. I was just so proud of him that I wanted everyone to wait and see him. To me, that was the whole point of the visit.

But they missed their chance, unless they went to the fruit stand. Because Dad loved and lived to work. And if they stopped by to speak to him, he may not have said much. He was often quiet. Anything he communicated he did so in a very compact, concise way. Now there were exceptions — peaches, history, baseball, and especially politics. If you got him talking about politics, he’d really get going. When he was at the fruit stand, often his friends Lonnie Goforth and Bubby Reynolds would come over and talk politics with him. I’m not sure of their political leanings, but I’m sure it didn’t matter. He still loved them. Looking back, I learned from my Dad that differences could be debated, but also celebrated. And you may think very differently from your neighbor, but they are still your neighbor, and you can still love them. My Dad taught me so many lessons over the years, more than my formal education, really, but I think it’s this one that stands out the most and I’m most grateful for.

Dad was also very, very funny. He rarely tried to be. But he’d drop these one liners from out of nowhere and they were so unexpected and hilarious. When I was in high school, I think I finally came to realize how funny he was. He had this really unique way of saying things, and I’d often joke around with my friends and imitate him, repeating his little sayings in his accent and tone. I still remember several of them, and my friends do, too; my old college roommate texted one to me the other day. You can ask me to share some later; I promised Mom I wouldn’t do that here.

Something that always amused me about my Dad was how he could drive for hours to pick up apples or take peaches somewhere and not even turn on the radio. Not even talk radio. He’d just drive in silence. I don’t recall ever asking him why, but he wasn’t much for multi-tasking. As you’ve heard today, he was very present. I think he liked to just do one thing and really dive into that thing. I could imagine asking him and him saying something like “Driving is for driving, it’s not a concert.” But as I got older and started writing songs, I’d often bring my guitar home with me and play for him. “Cameron, Kim’s gonna give us a concert,” Mom would say. “OK,” he’d reply, and lean back in his chair and take it all in, tapping his feet. One night, just recently, he stopped me after a song — actually he did this a few times — and said, “Kim, you ought to call and ask your Uncle Wayne to play with you sometime.” I’d just say, “ Perhaps one day I will.” It struck me while I was playing for him just how intent a listener he was and always had been. He seemed to just sit back and observe. I think he saw, heard, and understood so much more than the average person. He quietly contemplated things, and some times I wished he would have shared a little more, but everything he did share was so measured, thought out, and just seemed so important. But it was never, ever judging. In all his years, and with all he must have seen and heard, never did I ever hear him say a cross word about a single person.

When I was young, I felt like our household was pretty different. I was really shy and self-conscious, and easily embarrassed. My Dad would drive his tractor down the road and hold up traffic, and everyone knew it was him. Some of my friends laughed and called him Grandpa. He was older than most of my friends’ Dads, and he was very conscious of that— Mom always said he worried that he’d “be the only parent at their child’s graduation in a wheelchair.” Well he wasn’t in a wheelchair. And in fact he was very vibrant and active up until about about 12 or so years ago. For so long, I felt like we were a little backwoods — I mean what kind of profession is farming? Who does that? But now I’m so incredibly grateful to have grown up seeing someone grow food that people would put on their tables. It’s just so amazing. When I finally wised up several years ago, I told him how important that was. He just sort of shrugged it off.

While my upbringing may have felt a little different — I know that really I was no different from any other girl, I wanted so badly for my Dad to be proud of me. And I do hope he was. But more than anything, I hope he knew how proud I was of him. Thank you all, and thank you, Dad.