Lubie Lynn Bedwell 1951
In the past I have praised my husband, my son, and my son-in-love on Father’s Day. This year, I am going to praise my grandfather.
When I was three years old, my biological father decided he no longer wanted to be bothered with me or my mother and disappeared from our lives as well as those of his parents. Her father immediately stepped in and took over the vacated role. I was raised as Mother’s much younger sister. I knew the difference in my head, but not my heart. As a toddler I had named him “Bangdaddy” and he was, and will be, known as that by all my friends, the family, the entire community, and me for eternity. He was a kind and gentle man with a strength of character that would have rivaled Superman. How he survived in a house full of females, I never have understood. Even all the pets except for one parakeet were female. I guess his way of coping with all of us in his “leisure” time was his Masonic/Shrine obligations and church work. He was so well respected that at the age of 88, he was asked to return to the Board of Deacons to fill out an unexpired term of one of his friends that had died. The others were disappointed when he refused even an honorary title. Even at the age of 91, and even though he was tired physically and ready to join my grandmother, it seemed to us that his life was cut way too short.
There was never a doubt to anyone who knew him that my mother, I, and my children were the light of his life, only second place to God.
I could continue to extol his virtues and love for others for a long time, but, because the entire World Wide Web cannot hold all the good things he did in his lifetime, I will stop by saying “Happy Father’s Day to Lubie Lynn Bedwell. I wish you were here. I miss your unconditional love and acceptance.”
