There are many gifts in growing older. There are hard things too. As you age, you lose the ability to enjoy physical activities as you did when you were younger. Your hearing is not so keen, which sometimes is a blessing, like when the Grammys are on. You need a scorecard on which glasses you should have on, readers, distance, driving, computer? One of the hardest parts of aging is losing people in your life.
This past Tuesday, I received a message from a friend telling me that her daddy had passed away. He and my mom were the last two of a group of couple friends. Now, there is one. Mr. Leech or Unca Dan was not just a friend of my parents.' He was one of my best friend's dad and growing up, a second dad to me. It would be unfair for me to say that I will miss him, for I have not seen him in some time, but it is fair to say that I will miss knowing that he walks this earth. I have no doubt where he is on this next leg of his eternal journey. I am sure that he and Mrs. Leech are having a grand reunion. I pray it is so.
Mr. Leech was above all things a kind and gentle man. He treated me as though he thought of me as a 4th daughter. I have vague memories of being in Florida with my family when I was about four or five years old. I sometimes wonder if my memories are more from seeing pictures of that trip rather than actual memories. There are no pictures that I have seen recently of a trip I made with the Leech family to Florida in 1969, but I still have vivid memories of moments with them. It was the first time I had seen the ocean since the trip with my family, and I think Mr. Leech was the most satisfied by my excitement.
Mr. Leech liked cars and golf and telling a story. If he started a story, you best sit back and relax because it was going to take a while. It seems to me that he always had a smile on his face. He loved his girls, Becky, Barbara, and Maribeth. He was proud of his daughters. He did not approve of Becky and me being mean to her younger sisters, which, we were from time to time, but his reproofs were always gentle and kind. I am fairly certain I never heard him yell, even when he had to send one or more of us from the dinner table for foolish behavior, and yes, I got sent from the table just like his daughters. There is comfort in that.
I don't remember any long conversations or his pontificating on his faith and beliefs, he just simply lived them in love. I always felt safe and comfortable in his presence. That was not necessarily true of everyone's dad. There is something so marvelous about a humble person who draws no attention to himself, who spends his life striving to serve others, who feels no competition as he reaches down to give another a boost. That was Unca Dan.
My mom will miss him terribly. Even as hard as I would try every October 14 to be the first to sing "Happy Birthday" to my mom, more times than not, Mr. Leech beat me to it. He was thoughtful that way. He is the one who actually called my mom to tell her when Mrs. Leech passed away, just a couple days after my brother, Mike, died. As sad as he was at the loss of his beautiful wife, he was compassionately concerned about how the news of her death would hurt his friend who was reeling from the loss of her second son.
This world needs a lot more Dan Leech type folks. Kind and gentle people who live their lives loving and caring for those around them, without fanfare, without the need for recognition. What can be said more of a man than that he was loved, that he loved well, and that the world was a much better place for his having been here? That was our dear Unca Dan. So, those who loved him will mourn his loss as well as rejoice in the gift of having him in our lives. His daughters, even in their grief, will continue to live and love and laugh, for to do otherwise would dishonor him. I am grateful to have known him.
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