The Day Dad Died
I woke up thinking about my father today. It was almost as if he was here, and because we believe in “the communion of the saints,” I think he was.
It was a Sunday morning, forty-four years ago this week. As the sun rose over the Western Pennsylvania town where he grew up, spent his life, built his business, and raised his family, my father’s battle with cancer came to an end and he experienced the words of Charles Wesley’s great Easter hymn:
Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia!
Following our exalted head, Alleluia!
Made like him, like him we rise. Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies. Alleluia!
Dad was only 59. It seemed older to me then than it does now! He grew up on a little farm where my grandparents somehow raised six children in a four room house. Their first-born, Harold, died as an infant in the flu epidemic of 1918, a consequence of what was supposed to be “the war to end all wars.” The uncle for whom I am named, evidently the “joy bringer” in a family infected with genetic seriousness, died in WWII. My grandmother died with a heart attack shortly after they received word that his plane had been shot down over Holland.
But the family went on. I remember when my grandfather married the wonderful woman whom became the grandmother we knew and loved. She lived to be 100.
The Family Goes On
Dad dreamed of going to college, but instead he and his three brothers went to war. Like the rest of “the greatest generation,” he came back and went to work, and built an auto parts business out of nothing. The store burned down the summer before my twin brother and I went to college, but he rebuilt it and went on. It’s still there today with a different name.
Dad had strong opinions – a genetic flaw that runs rampant in the DNA of our family — but his life was built on a few unshakable commitments to his family, his business, and his faith. Everyone who knew Ves (short for Sylvester), knew he was a Christian, a Methodist, and a teetotaler in that order.
Dad was also a Greatest Generation patriot. He was a WWII vintage Republican in a party that has been taken over by MAGA/Project 2025 extremism. Before I was old enough to vote the family went to a Nixon rally in 1960. I still have an AuH2O (Goldwater) lapel pin from 1964. The first time I could vote, I voted for Nixon in ’68. (I should have known better!) I finally broke from the family tradition when I voted for George McGovern in 1972.
My father wasn’t perfect, but he was always a man of unquestionable integrity and impeccable decency. He taught us to treat every person with respect, just the way he treated every customer who came into the store. He was the total antithesis of the six-time-bankrupted, twice-impeached, 34-indictment-convicted, consistently-dishonest, court-determined sexual predator who is running again this year. I’m sure my father never voted for a Democrat, but I’m equally sure that he could never vote for Trump today.
To the Next Generations
My father lived long enough to see his three sons graduate from college and start their careers. He loved the women Jack and I married and adored the four grandchildren who arrived before he died. His love reaches beyond the grave to his third daughter-in-law, fifth grandchild, and the eight great-grandchildren who are heirs to a fortune not of wealth but of love, loyalty and faith.
Dad’s witness goes on in the words he wanted to be carved into his gravestone: “I commend my Jesus to you.” We think he picked the words up from E. Stanley Jones. Wherever he found them, they are consistent with who he was. The way he lived was the way he died and the way he died was the way he lived.
Thanks, Dad, for being with us “in life, in death and life beyond death.”
Grace and peace,
Jim
Jim Harnish 
nice post jim … assume u r still thriving … i’ve never “lived
Beautiful! Bonnie
Jim Thanks for sharing this. Although my father and mother both had personalities that sometimes were a challenge I regularly find myself remembering the best of who they were and missing them. I know I have been truly blessed by them and hope that I have blessed my family in a positive way. Have a blessed and FUN day and see you and Martha soon. SHALOM, Tom Mc
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I think I met your Father; I know I met your Mother. I had forgotten he died so young; wh
Beautifully said about your dad who was such a good person.Sent from my iPhone
Such a great legacy, much like the one you will leave.
A good man, married to an equally wonderful woman.
Thanks Jim….Sent from my iPhone
Jim,
Like you, I loved my Dad for so many of his attributes. Fortunately, he lived to 82. I especially think of him when we visit the HPUMC sanctuary. He, like your Dad, was such a good man and model for me.
In that I earned a MS from Clarion State College, so I share the PA connection, and my first vote was cast on Nixon, as was yours. I suspect we have other places where our live journeys intersected, such as when we joined Hyde Park.
Russ Adkins
Thanks Jim. Great as always!
I love the family photo!
Blessings, Ken
Good stuff, hard to believe how long ago th
Jim,This is but another examp
I remember going into your Dad’s auto parts store with my Dad.
However, what I most remember was that your Dad and Mom seemed like fixtures in the Methodist Church in Clarion, PA. They were always there – being a vital part of whatever was happening.
It was obvious that his family, his faith, and his business were what he was committed to and his example was a great witness to others.
I did not realize he died at such an early age. He did a lot with the life God gave him. In his own way he was a saint.
Edd Myers
What great remembrances, Jim. Your Dad was a great example for his children.
I know you have many good memories. I didn’t meet your dad, but my dad did, on campus at the beginning of our freshman year in college when they brought us to school. I remember my dad telling about this man he had met (your dad) and how much he had enjoyed talking to him. My dad died in 1978 of a massive heart attack He was only 66.
Thanks for reminding me that our parents met each other. The years have really flown by!