The Father
The Father
Pops. My father. Joel Archie Johnson. How do I reduce a life, my father’s life of almost one hundred years to a few paragraphs? It is a task I do not wish to undertake. Almost seems wrong to me. I’m sure you get that. Me, I’m nobody special, but my father, yes, special is a good word, very special indeed.
The “Greatest Generation.” They were born on the heels of the “war to end all wars,” they were born into a sea of rapid change. Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War II, the nuclear bomb, personal cars, the home radio, telephone and television, then the computer, the internet. All these and more fell into my father’s domain. He was born in a neighbor’s house, rode a horse to school, his father used a horse to plow the wheat fields, used an outhouse to do his business and ended up writing computer code for an on-line game he invented. He went from listening to a glowing wooden box with his family gathered around to reading his news on his iPad. Change.
Words of the heart and soul were not to be found in abundance in this “the Greatest Generation.” Love was translated into an act of hard work and duty. The same “duty” that took many millions of them into the fires of WWII. They emerged from that ugly and vile conflict to a changed world. They had to find their way in a new and unparalleled paradigm change. After completing his degree in Economics, my father eventually found his way by building homes in the postwar building boom in Southern California. More of a craftsman than a business man, he eventually had to reinvent himself at the age of 55. I remember him studying endless hours to pass the Certified Public Accountant exam. He proudly retired from the State of California at 70 where he plied his accountancy skills.
Pops never spoke much of spiritual matters. He was a quiet man and his faith was
equally quiet. I questioned him on his salvation many years ago. I still have the letter written in his energetic and lively handwriting stating he remembered when he made the decision to accept Christ as his savior in high school. He seemed to have got stuck somewhere in his faith, can’t put my finger on it. Let’s just say he was not my spiritual mentor leading me into a deeper walk with Christ. I don’t hold that against him, he loved us all the best he knew how.
Fast forward. Mom had been gone (yes, she was a believer) for fourteen years when he finally moved away from his home and cherished workbench in the garage to be near my brother when my letter writing started with him. He had just turned 98 and he decorated his new apartment with all the things that reminded him of his 57 years with my mom. With his faith still “quiet,” I believe the letter journey I took with him for his remaining nineteen months resulted in a deeper understanding of his Christ. The resulting peace of this deepening relationship with his risen Christ was evident to me. I learned more about my father’s faith in those last months than all the years before. Grace.
You can read here (Rescued from the Enemy’s Territory) about his last days. Yes, his risen Christ was very “real” to him as he departed this territory, the enemy’s territory.