Happy Birthday, Dad

This past weekend, on January 27th, was my Dad's birthday. He would have been 93. We lost Dad at age 88 in 2019 after a long battle with Alzheimer's.

On his birthday, I can't help but look back and remember my Dad and the fact that he was the giver of good gifts.

One of my earliest memories of my Father is from the early 70s. It was early evening, and we were running errands. I was in the back seat of his Chevrolet Caprice Classic company car. The radio was on KVIL 103.7. Glenn Campbell's song, "Rhinestone Cowboy," was playing, and an early elementary school Brian Summerall was quietly singing along.

Picture 7-year-old me singing, "…and I'll dream of the things I'll do, with a subway token and a dollar tucked inside my shoe."

Strangely, even though our errands were finished, Dad pulled into the parking lot of a K-Mart. He parked, looked back at me, and said, "I'll be right back." In the 70s, leaving your child in a locked car in a dark parking lot at night was okay.

About 15 minutes later, Dad returned to the car. He reached into the backseat and handed me a record. It was the 45th single of "Rhinestone Cowboy."

I can't hear that song today without thinking of that moment and the spontaneous gift.

Dad was like that. Occasionally, he would have to pick me up from Junior High when mom had a conflict. He always had a bottled Dr. Pepper (glass… the best!) and a bag of "Lance" peanuts from the bank break room vending machine waiting for me as I got in his car.

Years later, when I became an adult, he'd show up at my front door with a jacket from Costco, Alaskan salmon he'd picked up from Central Market, or a bag of fresh peaches from East Texas. He'd buy me lunch every Friday with golf buddies from Preston Trail. His gift-giving went from Rhinestone Cowboy to college tuition for my kids.

Dad, like any father, had his faults, but when it came to gifts to his children, he modeled out what our heavenly Father is like.

"For God so love the world that he GAVE." John 3:16

"If you then, being imperfect parents, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!" Matthew 7:11

Not only does the giving of good gifts come to mind when I think of Dad, but I also think of our home at the corner of Cliffbrook Drive and Briar Cove

Dad's last year was spent in a hospital bed in the middle of the living room of that home. When I would visit, I would remind him we had been in that house for 48 years.

"This is kind of a nice place where you kids grew up," he would smile and say, often with his eyes still closed. He was right.

I remember the day we first went to look at that home when I was 7. Dad had gone ahead of us to see it, and my sisters and I met him later with Mom.

We gleefully ran from room to room, claiming our spaces, and imaged what it would be like to live there. On the way home with Mom in the station wagon, we pleaded with her, begging, "Can we get it? Can we get it?"

She replied, "Your father will do his best."

And he did. Soon came the 1970 September day when I left for school from our old house at 6518 LBJ Freeway (yes, we lived on the freeway) and then walked home after school to the new house.

Flash forward to a November Sunday night in 2018, when I locked up the house for the last time, alone… just after the funeral home people took Dad away.

As I stood by his empty hospital bed in our living room of 48 years…

• Just five feet from where we decorated the Christmas tree as kids
• Right where we played on the floor with the dogs
• Beside the chair where he read the morning news, and we listened to KRLD Sports Central and the Tex Schramm and Tom Landry shows together
• A few feet from where I took my prom picture with Lindsey Zavitz by the front door…

The Wonder Years theme music began to play in my head… then I heard the narration from the show.

"There was a time when the world was enormous, spanning the vast, almost infinite boundaries of your neighborhood. The place where you grew up, where you didn't think twice about playing on someone else's lawn. The street was your territory that occasionally got invaded by a passing car. It was where you didn't get called home until after it was dark. And all the people and all the houses that surrounded you were as familiar as the things in your own room."

"Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day, you're in diapers; the next day, you're gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a place… a neighborhood… a house… like a lot of other houses, a yard like a lot of other yards, on a street like many other streets. There were moments that made us cry with laughter. And there were moments, like this one, of sorrow… And the thing is... after all these years, I still look back… with wonder."

It dawned on me as I stood in the quiet, in the now empty living room, in the house I grew up in.

Alzheimer's did not get the final word in Dad's life. Jesus did.

Because… just like my Father prepared a place for us in Northwood Hills, our Heavenly Father does the same.

"Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.'" John 14:1-3,6

Just like in 1971, I woke up in one home, left, and then walked home to the new Summerall home my Dad prepared for us.

Dad woke up that 2019 November Sunday morning in our earthly home on the corner of Cliffbrook and Briar Cove. That evening, Jesus walked him home to his eternal home.

For you see, love prepares a place.

One day, we will all wake up in our earthly homes, but as believers, we will be walked to the eternal home our Heavenly Father prepared for us.

It won't be long. I'll see you soon, Dad. And if you could have a bottled Dr. Pepper waiting with a bag of Lance peanuts from heaven's break room, you won't hear any complaints from me.