“The freedom to exercise moral and ethical judgment is an essential ingredient in the dignity of personhood.” —Guidelines for Employer and Employee Relationships (voted by the 2003 Annual Council).
[The following email was sent to Leonie’s parents’ pastor on July 27, 2006. It was an enclosure in James Coffin’s letter of October 5, 2006.]
___________ [Pastor’s name],
I’ve shared my feelings with Jim and asked him to draft a letter on my behalf—because I simply don’t have the ability and the energy to do so right now. I’ve vetted his draft, and I’m sending it to you. This is what I would like to have read at my father’s memorial—not that I expect it will be. In my opinion, however, I think it would do more good than harm for it to be read. It will preclude a barrage of questions that will otherwise arise, and it addresses things in such a way that my mother doesn’t appear to have been a contributor to this sad saga. Others may not agree with my perspective, however. So I’m not trying to force the issue.
What I would ask is that, at the least, you read the letter to my family. (I see it as particularly important that it be read to them and not just handed to them.) I’m heart-broken that it has come to this. I would give anything for such a relationship to have existed that I would never even consider absenting myself from such a significant event.
Thanks for your help, and I’m sorry for the extra stress this causes you.
Leonie.
PS. Just so you are aware: Today is my mother’s 81st birthday.
My father, _______________, was a man of major accomplishments. Few people have achieved the things in life that he did. Whatever his hand found to do, he did it with all his might. He was a non-stop generator of ideas. Hundreds of ideas. And most of them, supported by his energy and enthusiasm, were winners. He was one of a kind.
My father was the consummate salesman. He never met a stranger. Every person he encountered was a sales project—to give up smoking, to quit drinking, to join the Adventist Church, to get involved in his latest venture. Where other people saw brick walls, he saw climbing opportunities—the chance to attain new heights from which new possibilities would surely be visible. He didn’t know the meaning of the words No and Can’t. He was a master of charm. And if charm didn’t work, sheer tenacity usually would.
My father was committed to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. A million percent. He ate it, drank it, slept it, breathed it. His focus during almost every waking moment was how to spread Adventism more effectively. As a young publishing director, he led his sales team to record-setting year after record-setting year. As youth director for the Greater Sydney Conference, he took the city by storm with his “Best Saturday Night in Town” programs. As director of the General Conference temperance department, he kept the administrators in a constant state of fear that his department would become the tail that wagged the GC dog. And retirement wasn’t a time for rest but a chance to try something new—church planting and the ensuing church building program.
With such an active program of church involvement and such an intense focus, my father’s interaction with his family was predicated on it (1) being his schedule, (2) addressing his agenda and (3) arriving at his conclusions. He had to be in control. He couldn’t waste time dealing with non-conformity or questioning or emotional weakness in the ranks at home when there was a world out there that needed to be saved.
I speak only for myself and not for my brothers, but my father’s absenteeism, both physically and emotionally, was extremely hurtful to me during my growing-up years. In retirement, however, when he no longer needed to earn his paycheck and no longer held the fate of his department in his hands, he unfortunately continued to put the church ahead of family—be it the celebration of milestones or bearing the burdens of family crises. My father’s repeated failure to be there for me, my children and my husband during times of indescribable need over the past few years—added to his adamant defense of his priorities and his strident denunciations of my pleas for him to change his priorities—means that I simply can’t risk being present at today’s memorial service.
Today is a time of sorrow for all who knew my father. A great achiever whose efforts have blessed many will no longer be in the trenches working. An amazing generator of ideas will no longer be coming up with new and better ways of achieving the goal. All who are present feel a justifiable sense of sorrow and loss.
Although I’m not present, my sorrow—though no less intense, and maybe even more so—is not so much over what has been lost but what might have been, yet never was. With my father’s passing, the last faint flicker of hope is gone that the kind of father-daughter relationship I so desperately needed, so desperately longed for and so desperately pleaded for will ever become a reality. I truly mourn with you at this time.
Leonie Coffin
Copyright © 2008 James Coffin
