Tribute to my dad (read at his funeral, June 6)

I've been thinking a lot on what I wanted to say about Dad here, at his funeral.  He was known for his integrity, of course: never combative, just quietly resolute.  

There was his ingenuity: like when he designed and built a little camper on the back of a pick-up truck, so he and Mom could spend days at a time visiting in the tribe.  Ompi Ya, the Tsachis called it - the Turtle House.

Who can forget his love of puns - did you know that puns are the number 1 form of humor?  Of course, there is nothing lower than the number 1... 

There are his silly songs and linguistic skills and word play and love of wife and family and that rock-solid faith that figured that God knew what He was about and didn't waste time trying to convince the Almighty otherwise.

I could talk about all of these but, instead, I want to talk about my father's voice.

In these last weeks of his life, as the cancer progressed, the Alzheimer's sometimes got the upper hand.  It became easy to tell the difference between what was said through the fog of Alzheimer's and what was my Dad, being himself.  His voice would change.

Because I knew my father: his humor, his convictions, his innate courtesy (who else tells the nurse who just put him through an uncomfortable procedure, "Don't worry, I know you were just doing what was best for me"?) - because I knew my father's character, I knew his voice.

It was in his own voice that he repeated Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" with his sister when she sat beside his sick bed.  It was in his own voice that he joined in when we sang to him.  And it was in his own voice that he told us that he loved us.

One day last month, as Dad's health took a nosedive, he offered a simple prayer: "Thank you, Lord, for these problems that we receive from Your good hand." 

And that - absolutely - was my father's voice.