Margaret Krome writes: This year, I'll give thanks for the life, memory of dad



"Mostly, though, my parents were just great parents. They had high expectations of their kids, and we went to lengths to meet them. It wasn't that they pushed us to be super-achieving children. Rather, they found things to admire about our talents, choices, values, hobbies, spouses -- our ways of life. They nurtured and engaged not only us, but also our friends, who would come and sit in the kitchen during my parents' happy hour after work when we were teenagers. Chins rested on knees as we sat on stools, hanging out with Marge and Jack. Some of these friends have remained close to my parents, even after we children moved elsewhere. My parents were models of intelligence and integrity. They engaged in civic issues and took their roles as citizens seriously. At one time or another, without fanfare, each of them resigned from a job for ethical reasons. I honor my parents' strong marriage. One of my mother's friends says she knows of no other couple so happily married as they were. Nearly 60 years of respect, forbearance, admiration, joy, intelligence and love beamed into the world around them. Perhaps that's why, when I began to write about my father just now, my mother slipped right into my sentences and paragraphs. I miss my father, but for his well-lived life and easy death, I am deeply thankful." Journalist Margaret Krome served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon.

Margaret Krome writes: This year, I'll give thanks for the life, memory of dad

Margaret Krome: This year, I'll give thanks for the life, memory of dad

Margaret Krome — 11/22/2007 7:39 am

This week I celebrate my late father. My siblings and mother are gathering at Thanksgiving, and for the first time since he died in early September, we are sharing pictures, stories, memories and gratitude.

Other than those few years, now decades ago, when I blamed my parents for every flaw in my character and problem in the world, I've known always that I was lucky. Partly, I was just grateful that by whatever fluke of the universe, and out of the almost infinite possible outcomes of their union, they happened to plop into human society someone who became their fourth child, and me.

Mostly, though, my parents were just great parents. They had high expectations of their kids, and we went to lengths to meet them. It wasn't that they pushed us to be super-achieving children. Rather, they found things to admire about our talents, choices, values, hobbies, spouses -- our ways of life. They nurtured and engaged not only us, but also our friends, who would come and sit in the kitchen during my parents' happy hour after work when we were teenagers. Chins rested on knees as we sat on stools, hanging out with Marge and Jack. Some of these friends have remained close to my parents, even after we children moved elsewhere.

My parents were models of intelligence and integrity. They engaged in civic issues and took their roles as citizens seriously. At one time or another, without fanfare, each of them resigned from a job for ethical reasons.

I honor my parents' strong marriage. One of my mother's friends says she knows of no other couple so happily married as they were. Nearly 60 years of respect, forbearance, admiration, joy, intelligence and love beamed into the world around them. Perhaps that's why, when I began to write about my father just now, my mother slipped right into my sentences and paragraphs. She and he belonged together.

So it's been hard for us, especially my mother. Now 2

months after Jack died, I'm mostly solid, having grieved at times intensely and at time distractedly. But it's an elliptical process, and I'm buying boxes of Kleenexes to put around my sister's house for our days together over Thanksgiving, when Jack will be so present for us all.

Curiously, the morning Jack died, Mom found a file in his desk labeled "Obituary." It included various things important to him. His alma mater. His role as a civil engineer. And it's true that I'll lead our family in a salute as we drive over one of the bridges he designed for the interstate system.

But those are the dry bones of Jack's life. More important, Marge finds she cannot go anywhere without someone, often someone she doesn't know, running to tell her of their respect for his intelligence, his kindness and civility, his integrity.

A daughter's appreciation will inevitably be different from others. My earliest memory is of squealing in terror and delight while my dad held me safely in ocean waves crashing at the beach. I remember his passion for beautiful land, for music, for Andrew Wyeth. His fondness for the absurd, his love of poetry.

Despite nine months in carrying our babies before giving birth, nothing prepared me for the impact of their presence. In some ways, death is similarly absolute. Although Jack died without a long illness, without pain, and not particularly expecting to die when he did, I doubt we could have prepared ourselves for his absence even if it had been otherwise.

In recent years, I told Jack directly the many things I loved and admired about him, and there's nothing I wish I'd said differently. As he went to bed the night he died, he told my mother as he often did how much he loved her, how grateful he was for his family, and he died with a poem on his lips.

I miss my father, but for his well-lived life and easy death, I am deeply thankful.

Margaret Krome is a Madison resident who writes this column every other week.

Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: November, 2007; RPCV Margaret Krome (Cameroon); Figures; Peace Corps Cameroon; Directory of Cameroon RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Cameroon RPCVs; Journalism; Speaking Out; Fathers; Wisconsin

When this story was posted in December 2007, this was on the front page of PCOL:




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