What we see in our life here on earth are but small snapshots of the greater vision that God has planned for us. We can look into each other’s eyes, but the bigger picture of the depths of our souls and character are known only by the one who made us. My father, 102, is seeing the bigger picture now and although still spunky and sometimes talkative, he often looks past me, towards a new and beautiful vista.
If you were to be given a new job to do, you would first have to come to grips with the fact that it is not the same as your old job – it is an entirely new undertaking. You would be in a new position and probably relate to people much the same way you always had, but your new endeavor would require you to put aside the way you used to do things in favor of your new responsibilities and skills. By in large, people are not very good at doing two jobs at once, and after hiring into your position, your new manager would certainly ask you to stop doing things the old way.
“Chucky,” he might say, “that is not how we do things here at the Acme Dynamite Company. When you hold the widget in your left hand, we ask that you pass it over to your right before you lay it down on the whatchacallit.”
You might ask your new boss to explain in more detail what the widget does in the first place or why the whatchacallit is even important, but you eventually realize that you would not be able to keep your job if you replied like this:
“Well, Mr. Dynamite, in my head I am still at my old job and it’s easier to do things the way I did it there. So, while I appreciate the suggestion, I’m going to pass on your suggestion and just slam the widget down here instead.”
That reply would not bode well for you. You’d be in a pickle, because your boss would see your defiance as an unnecessary headache, a mistake by HR, and then kindly show you out the door. On your exit interview, he would point out that you have an inability to recognize that your new job wasn’t like your old one, and that holding onto the old job was not going to produce the rapid expansion and dramatic increases he has come to expect from his new employees at the Acme Dynamite Company. He might even quote someone like the musician Tom Petty, who said, “It’s time to move on, it’s time to move on, where you’re going, I have no way of knowing.” And that really holds true for anyone’s future as the old job fades and the new one begins.
My father has had many jobs in his life and you might say he has had to wear many different kinds of hats. To my knowledge none of his jobs involved dynamite, for which I am thankful. Still, he always loved wearing hats of all kinds, some of them being athletic, some fatherly, some in the military, and of course a number of them in the medical field. He has lived a very eventful and full life, a life of where he has been esteemed in many areas. He is 102 now, and so, in his last season of life, he is preparing for some new challenges and a new job, and putting on some new hats he hasn’t worn before, hats that are helping him prepare for the new position he is moving towards.
He does spend a lot of time in bed now, and what he notices around him and talks about does not have the clarity it once had. His stories are a bit shorter and the details he adds do not always fit the stories like they used to. I like to think that is because he is letting go of all the old jobs that will not serve him where he is going, and also to prepare him to meet his new boss and take on a new job. Our family has not seen him wear this hat before. It’s not one we recognize, but my father does, so he is trying it on for size.
During my lifetime when I had to change jobs, there were the growing pains of getting to know the new system, what my duties were, and my new manager. I have heard that my dad’s new manager will be someone that has known him all his life, someone that has great patience and love for my father, and that gives me great comfort as my dad moves towards his new season.
In the past, there was a time when he grabbed my father’s hand and walked him out of a Quonset hut on a POW island in South Korea, past Communist prisoners who wanted to do harm to him. There were times when He stood next to him at the operating table as one of dad’s patients was in trouble and told him where the next incision should be. There were difficult family moments times when his boss nudged him and suggested he tell his wife he was sorry for acting like a buffoon. None of these were easy jobs, but they helped introduce my father to a new boss that he was about to spend a lot of time with. I’m glad that is happening, because if you are going to spend a lot of hours with someone, it helps if you like them and they want you around.
Now, when I sit by my father’s side, I don’t hear so much about the father or soldier or tennis player. What he says reflects the conversations he is having with his manager, the one that has been behind him all along, nudging him along in the right direction when my dad did not know what to do. My father is letting all his past experiences go because he will not need them anymore. He will soon pick up new tools that his new boss has laid out for him and begin fresh. He won’t have to know anything about his past jobs; he will only be required to recognize his Maker when he arrives and say, “Hey, I know you. You’re the guy who saved me when I…and you’re the guy who helped me when I… and aren’t you the guy that was there for me when I…hey…wait a second! I know who are!
I see evidence that my father is having bits and pieces of those conversations right now. As I sit by him and feed him and then kiss him on the forehead and tell him that I love him before I leave his room, I don’t hear him say the things I used to hear. His gaze is going right past me to the One who is standing behind me, to the One Father who is standing behind all of us. My dad is talking to him in utterings that are beyond my understanding, in a language that the Father taught him. It is a heart language that needs no words. There are real people who are rushing forward to love him and reintroduce themselves to him, people like his wife, Lois, and my brother Gary, and others who also long to be near him now.
When you start a new job, it is like that. Your old hats don’t fit anymore, and the old responsibilities don’t make any sense, and all your old bosses fade away. Franky, I wish some of my old bosses would have faded away much earlier, but that’s another story. Now, there is a new direction for my dad, and it’s with that new boss, the kind, gentle and loving one that has always known where my dad would land. Everything has brought him here, to this point, and as I look down at him in his bed, I see him looking not just forward, but past me and beyond all of us here, and I believe he going to do wonderfully well and absolutely love his new position.