It’s been a couple of weeks, and the figurative stirring up of the dust has settled back to sort of what it was before, so now is an appropriate time to briefly reflect on the life and death of my father, Jack Chappell. An accomplished man who did well in his sphere, he was well liked, and well regarded, which to my mind is not quite the same thing. In any event, at his memorial service, he pulled a very full church.
An educator, a farmer, and a sportsman, he pursued these endeavors with an equal passion that, when these interests competed as they did from time to time, overset him. As he was perforce the overarching presence and personality in our household, the rest of the family was as a consequence oftentimes overwhelmed, as well. Quick to anger, but just as quick to forget, life at home was never ever dull.
Dad had a great love of the outdoors, and particularly our section of the Sierra Nevada, with resultant annual late summer trips through the high country on horseback where we’d not see another soul for weeks at a time. Though at the time I would rather have been visiting the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, now I realize this was an experience that cannot today be repeated, and am grateful for it.
A strong personality, with a son of strong personality, we frequently did not get along. With all that, we were as much alike as we were different, which was something my father understood without actually saying so, and as a consequence, kept his distance when he sensed that our personalities would collide. He loved family life, but hated discord, where for me, discord always seemed an inevitable part of life, and while not to be courted, need not be feared, either.
However, for the two of us, there were no go areas that functioned as not quite barriers, but hurdles. As Dad became very ill very quickly, overcoming these was much on my mind. But as I broached a couple of things that were heretofore verboten, my father was yet resistant and then it occurred to me- he was facing the prospect of eternity, and was very busy making up his own soul. What I sought to accomplish was the smallest of small potatoes in the cosmic scheme of things- and was mightily dwarfed by what my father faced. So the time was, as all wise people counsel, to let it go.
My father died on March 19, and while he’s left a void in my life, that void constitutes the largest element of my own grief. What both of us shared was a spirituality, albeit manifested differently in both of us, but I am nevertheless confident that he is now possessed of the wisdom of the ages, and that some of that wisdom he is yet able to communicate to me with some benefit. What for both of us were hurdles I considered were specific to our relationship I now know are part of life’s vicissitudes. While I don’t have the understanding of these that my father has achieved in his passing, I am optimistic that I will in the fullness of time, and realize that this is a gift my father has given me.