Five Feet Nine Inches

For anyone who knew my dad well, knows he didn’t write much down. He preached from pulpits across the globe for over 20 years and seldom had any notes or outline to speak of while giving those lessons. He didn’t consider writing one of his talents and found it difficult and challenging, and so he compensated by committing what he had to know to memory instead of putting it down on paper.

Several years back, I was rummaging through some of my dad’s old stuff and found a three-page essay he had written for a class when he was 18 years old. It was a character sketch of himself that he titled Five Feet Nine Inches (his height).

It was definitively Dad, as he espouses humor and deep insight. In one passage he writes, “As for my physique, I guess you could say it is fair (to partly cloudy).” Then two sentences later he confesses, “I can be a very stubborn person.”

After his death in April 2013, I stumbled back upon the essay, which I'd preserved since I found it the first time. I re-read it and it stung like a bee due to the circumstances. But this time around I have to say he knocked me over near the end of his essay when he discussed self-contentment, which was something myself and many others admired and praised him for on the day of his funeral.

He wrote:

I have infinite thoughts and ideas traveling through my mind, pleading not to be buried alive under the mass of bone and tissue. I sacrifice many of these thoughts, as well as things and places in trying to attain my future goals. Perhaps one of the biggest goals to me (or anyone else) is that of self-contentment, although I feel that complete self-contentment can never be reached on this earth. Some people may be very content or satisfied, but there will always be something or someone that will displease them. I believe that there is only one way to reach complete contentment – and that is through the door of Death. I am not saying that I’m going to go jump off a bridge somewhere just to be completely self-satisfied, my death will come in its own time and I don’t particularly want to rush it. I am saying that I want to be as satisfied and content as I possibly can in my lifetime. I have already taken the first step to self-contentment by accepting death as a natural and necessary part of living.

Gary D. Weaver

Dad, I’d say you did all right at living up to your rule on self-contentment.

The wild thing is in April of this year, it rolled over 10 years since his passing. Milestones like that always sting me hard. I had wanted to post something about him on the day, but things happen.

So, here I am, putting together a little something, that's mostly just a snippet of one of his deep thoughts from the 1970s. Something that is deep and meaningful all these years later.

What about you all? Do you have any long-term life goals? We should all write them down somewhere, so some family member can find it after we're gone.