Faith Through the Journey

Every year since 2002, this date has come with very poignant memories. My precious dad, Bob Whitcomb, entered the eternal presence of Jesus on November 5, 2002. I was working at the election polls when my husband came to tell me that my dad was with the Lord. As I open the polls today, November 5, 2013, I remember that my dad was a proud patriot. He was a veteran of WWII and the Korean War, and I have as one of my most prized possessions his VFW hat. My dad had a flagpole at his last home in Wichita, Kansas, and he would raise the American flag daily and fly it proudly. He made sure we knew the proper way to fold the flag!

Dad had a trememdous sense of humor! No one who met him would dispute that, and would remember Bob’s jokes and the way he expressed himself. As I watched the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears play Monday Night Football, I remembered how many times Dad would say, after a taxing Packer Sunday, “This is my last season in the NFL!” Earlier this year, after driving through a heavy Texas rainstorm, my son told me that he remembered how Grandpa always said that you should keep driving through rain, because you’ll eventually drive out of it. He shared this wisdom with the senior law firm partner with whom he was traveling, and the man concurred!

In 2013, our family equalled the record for “family additions”. In 2011, three were added by marriage and one by birth. In 2013, 4 new babies were added to this expanding Whitcomb-Nelson-Clark-Frick-Hassell-Conner family! Incredibly, since Dad left us, we’ve added 12 new members to his legacy! Whether it’s in the profound wisdom Dad shared with us, or in one of his very practical “sayings”, he’s always with us and can make us both laugh and cry in the same moment. Dad would have loved his 6 great-grandchildren, bouncing them and singing (off-key!) Pony Boy or the ever-popular Bumble-Bee tummy tickle (I did that with my grandson this spring and he smiled at me!). I admit I don’t know exactly how heaven works, but I often wonder how much God allows our loved ones to see what’s going on in the lives of their earthly loved ones. Today, as we remember with love and thankfulness this godly man who influenced us so greatly, I am blessed with the memory of a daddy who loved his daughter enough to take her to Mayo Clinic to find a way for her to live with Crohn’s Disease… to let her go to college 700 miles away…and to have the faith that his God would indeed be able to care for his little girl even when he wasn’t there to “help”!

Robert Charles Whitcomb was, in many ways, an ordinary man, a man who worked hard and loved his family and his God. But to those of us us who knew him best, he was indeed a remarkable man and one who we were very blessed to know, and one who we will always be grateful to God that we were able to call Husband, Father, and Grandpa.