Lessons from my Dad...Love you Dad

A week ago I had the honor to give one the homilies at my Dad’s funeral along with my two sisters. To say he has impacted my career and vocation is an understatement. Today, one week later I wanted to share a copy of the homily I gave with you:

I am going to try to get through this without crying we will see how that goes (I made it). As I have been reflecting on the countless lessons I learned from my Dad, I want to take this opportunity to share a few of those lessons with all of you.

First and foremost my Dad modeled a faith that I can only hope to measure up-to. He did this through attending the 6:30 a.m. communion service at our church daily. The 6:30 am communion service family at St. Thomas meant so much to him and became an extension of our family. I remember when I began going in middle school when he bribed me to join him at the communion service saying that we could go out for breakfast afterward and read the paper together. I still remember those breakfasts going to every breakfast place in town. To this day, I still attend daily mass because of the model he set for me.

Another example of his faith is when he would normally, especially in his later years, cry during the reenactment of the Good Friday Stations of the Cross. During these recent years, his personal cross had become even heavier. I could see in those tears that he could relate so intimately with Jesus’s journey and suffering on the cross. This took on a new meaning in the last days of his life when I would hold up his bruised body while our family together changed him, I thought of how Mary must have felt when she held the bruised and broken body of Jesus in her arms after he died.

If you have talked to us since he passed, we might have shared with you the story of how in his final days my Dad was in his bed and took my Mom’s hand, held them then reached for my hand and squeezed our hands together. Instantly, the words of Jesus on the cross to Mary appeared in my mind. "Jesus, Therefore, seeing his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by, said to his Mother: “Woman, behold thy son.” Then, he said to the disciple “Behold thy mother.”" (Taken from the Gospel John). Mom, I will always be there for you when you need me.

A third way he lived out that faith was through accompanying others. I remember as a child my Dad would say that he was "going to go see a man about a horse". Later I learned that he said he “was going to go see a man about a horse” when he did not want us to know at such an early age that he was going to volunteer at the local youth corrections center. Fast forward a few years, I was in middle school and remember the night he took the family with him to Warrenville Youth Correctional facility. The purpose was to see a play put on by the women there as part of a nonprofit theatre program. This action of inclusion taught me a powerful lesson using no words, showing me that these women are so much more than what the criminal justice system might say about them. Often times, it is no fault of their own that they would end up in the center he would remark. He would express frustration at the system when the young women would come back to the center after just getting released because it was the “safest place they knew”.

The first memory I have of volunteering is doing ham and turkey collections at St. Thomas (the church I grew up at) every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter with my Dad. Words cannot express how much it meant to me that allowed me the opportunity to join him. I am sure at that age the ripe age of five I was not much help but thank you, Dad, for giving me that opportunity as I would go onto volunteer at every drive through high school and into college.

In his final days, he remarked to me, “You got a lot of work to do and I am sorry I can not be here to help you do it”. My life’s vocation would not have been found if it wasn’t for the example that my Dad modeled for me. Both in the ways, he gave back but also the experience he gifted me with to be proximate to his suffering through his adult life of hospital stays (7 in the past year alone).

Over the last year, while getting ready to launch an innovative empowerment focused nonprofit this fall called, Unlocking Communities, people have often asked me how did I get to this point? After reflection, I have concluded that it all started with the example my Dad set for me and how he offered me the opportunity to accompany him on his journey of suffering. This experience has allowed me to better accompany others through truly listening to their stories. His hospital visits taught me lessons about life that could not be taught in any other way. I often remark to friends that if they want a reality check go spend a day in the hospital then we could talk about what they saw.

There is so much more I could share but I want to close by sharing that my Dad often joked about joining the church choir but would remark that the only thing he could play is the radio. He loved the song leader of the band (and so do I). I remember listening to the song every Father’s Day at St. Thomas (our church) and countless times in the car on the way to visit my Dad in the hospital. Dad, “I am just a living legacy to the leader of my families band, my father” Love you Dad.

Thank you to each one of the 300+ who were there to honor his life and I know if he were still with us he would say “Go make it a better day for someone else”

His obituary: https://www.friedrichjones.com/obituaries/Mark-J-Goralski?obId=3346880#/obituaryInfo