This wake was different than most I had attended.  The funeral parlor was filled with empty chairs because those coming to pay their respects were lined around the room and out the door spilling into the hallway waiting for their turn to offer their condolences to the family of the deceased.  On a cold, dark February evening in Maine, when most don’t venture out once they’re in from work, these people were compelled to make an exception.

I could imagine their impatience at the length of time it took for the line to inch forward.  Once it was their turn, however, they seemed oblivious of all the others waiting behind them.  They had a need to let the family know just what this dear man meant to them.

My father had a way of making people feel special.  It is said that you can see into someone’s soul through their eyes. That was certainly true of my Dad.  The warm, ready smile on his face and the gleam in his eyes made you feel lovingly embraced by him even before he uttered a single word.

I knew that was the way he made me feel, but I had always assumed it was because I was his daughter.  What these people made me realize was that he didn’t reserve his love just for his family; he spread it wherever he went with whomever he met.  A woman my age approached me and told me how lucky I was to have had him as my father.  She said that she hadn’t been as fortunate, so she had “adopted” my father as her own. She went on to say that through his unconditional love, she gained inner strength as well as acceptance of herself.

At the funeral Mass, Fr. Dan described the olden day ‘lamplighter.’  He said that before electricity, streets were lit with gas or oil lamps.  Normally, as evening approached and darkness settled in, a designated person, who came to be known as the ‘lamplighter,’ would light these lamps by means of a wick on a long pole.  Because the lamplighter worked in the dark he was never actually seen.  He walked into the darkness in order to light the way for those coming behind him.  Even though you couldn’t see him, you always knew where he had passed because of the light he left in his wake.

Fr. Dan went on to liken my father to a modern-day lamplighter. Dad never called attention to himself.  He was a principled man, who did the right thing for the right reason even when no one was there to see; that was his wick on the pole.  His smile and gleaming eyes were the fire with which he lit his little corner of the world; his way to make God’s love come alive.  I am one of his blessed children who had the privilege of calling him “Dad.”  For that, I am eternally grateful.

~Zanne

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