DAD GAVE ME THE KEYS TO LIFE

The Boston Globe

September 10, 2006

Beverly Beckham

My father was not overtly, nor even subtly, religious . He hardly ever went to church and I didn't have a sense that he prayed, though at the end of his life he told me that St. Jude was his good buddy. I imagine, though, that he talked to St. Jude in the way he talked to me, not often couching his requests with "please" and "if possible," but stating them directly and firmly as in, "I need you to do this for me."

At the end of his life he handed me a crucifix, which he said he carried with him throughout the Second World War.

"My mother gave it to me. Now I'm giving it to you. Don't lose it," he told me. And that was it. Not a single word more.

A few years before when I gave him a subscription to "The Daily Word" a compilation of spiritually uplifting readings for every day he yelled at me. "What's this for? What do you think, I'm dying?" he hollered over the phone. I tried to explain. "I thought because you like `Don't Sweat the Small Stuff' so much that you'd like this, too, Dad. It's inspirational."

But he didn't want inspirational.

Last year, when he really was dying, a priest came to his hospital room with Communion and my father didn't kick him out. He was polite, almost compliant. "That was nice," he told his wife and me after the priest left. He looked, with his head against the white hospital pillow, almost beatific.

"Do you want him to come back tomorrow?" we asked.

"What for?" my father said.

My father's relationship with God was like that - on my father's terms.

He died nearly a year ago, and I don't know how things work when you've crossed to the other side, but I have the feeling that my father is still bossing God around, and still directing me.

He watches out for me, I know. I sense him beside me. I hear him sometimes. "Don't you even think about cutting the grass in those sandals." "Ask yourself, in a year will this matter?" "Slow down." "Don't interrupt." And I think, I don't really hear him. I'm just remembering all the things he said.

And then he tells me something he never said.

Last Sunday, for example. I went to open an old trunk he gave me. He used to refurbish them and this one, full of family movies, was locked.

"You have to be careful," he told me at least 100 times. "The locks are originals. They have no keys. If you slam them shut and they lock, you're fresh out of luck."

"OK, Dad. I'll be careful."

And I was. But apparently not careful enough.

I was searching through a kitchen drawer for something to pick open the lock, asking my husband what he thought I should do, when I heard my father's voice. He said, "There's a key in my jewelry box."

But of course there could be no key. Hadn't he told me there were no keys for these chests?

"There's a key for this one," he insisted.

And so I did what my father said. I went to his jewelry box, opened it and there among his cuff links was a key. And the key fit the lock and the chest opened.

Rome won't be calling to authenticate this. My father isn't a saint and he never was.

But he was a good man who liked to help people, who liked being in charge, and who, even now, likes being in charge. And being listened to by the daughter he continues to love.