What is left when we are gone? I mean, besides the material things we accumulate during a lifetime? Without us, other people, friends, our loved ones….they will hold our memories for us. Children and grandchildren will carry on the name and the family stories.
- You just hope that you are remembered, and that you are remembered kindly; that time will soften the harder edges for others, just as time softens the harder edges of your own opinions and ideas as you get older.
- You hope that the lessons you have tried to instill in your children, that they carry them through life and that they continue to learn and grow. -- You want that for them…and you want that for yourself…because they are a part of you, and will remain so after you are gone.
- You hope that you will be forgiven for whatever you did that hurt or caused harm. That you will be remembered with love.
I am Jill Perrapato. Don Pengra was my Dad. We made some time to talk about some of these big questions over the last year. He and I agreed that it won’t matter if people forgive you in the end, because you won’t be there anyways. He had learned to accept that he was human, that he made some mistakes, and some of those mistakes have hurt the people he loved the most. If sheer will could have conquered cancer, he’d still be here, trying to take care of others, if they’d only let him. I know he tried.
Most of you here today, don’t know him as a father, but some of you…well…let’s be honest---I used to be jealous of the people I’ve met who have said “He was like a father to me”…like they got something that I didn’t. I was wrong. Now I recognize that he practiced at being a dad …that he kept on trying and he used what worked with others to be better with his own children. He came from a generation where fathers play a more distant role than they do today. He was more tentative, uncertain with his kids, and that his uncertainty should never be confused with the idea that he didn’t care. He cared a lot. The last phone conversation I had with him ended like this:
“Goodbye Dad, I love you”, I said. .
“I love you more than you will ever know” he replied
Yes, Love is what is remembered.
I’ve been trying my whole life to know more about a man who meant so much to so many people
He was a son, a brother, a father, a husband, a co-worker, a boss, a friend. Loved fast cars and pretty girls, even before high school….he loved a good story too….told me about how he had to walk 10 miles to school in the snow, barefoot and uphill…both ways!
He liked being the good guy, the fun guy. He often gave my kids ice cream an hour before dinner…He took us to Disneyland on bank nights, to cabins and fishing, and impossibly long car trips. And he sang…..in the car, in the choir, in the house, in a quartet….he sang. I can still hear my father’s voice singing now. I remember how surprised I was when he told me how he hated to sing solo. Impossible that my fearless father had stage fright! He could water ski and drive a motorcycle, and play cards….and he could laugh.
To me, he was a private man, one who would rather let others take the spotlight – but he wanted to be invited to the party. He would have loved to be here today, and not just for the obvious reasons…he wanted to hear your stories, and make sure you were all right, and have another scoop of ice cream.
Yes, I will remember you with Love, Dad..
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