MOM director remembers his dad

I’m back—sort of. I was awakened 3:45am one Sunday morning to write these words. If that sounds inspired, perhaps. If that sounds demented, then I am more like my dad than I thought.

For those who don’t know of my dad’s demise, I am making a pun. After saying the “long slow goodbye” of those who suffer from Alzheimer’s, Dick Gruen died on March 9, 2006. He was 93. For the second time in six months, I was experiencing the death of a beloved parent.

Dad went pretty quickly in the end, dying in comfort, peace, and painlessly. My brother Bill flew up the next day from Washington, DC, to recover Dad’s body and send it on to Dayton, Ohio, for a timely burial, as I was heading off that day for Nicaragua. Dad’s memorial service is now this Memorial Day weekend. Dad was a member of the “Greatest Generation,” so this weekend is also most appropriate to remember him. As I cannot get him out of my mind, this week I shall speak for Dad who gradually lost his. This is something that he would have wanted, with a clear mind, to share with those he knew. I now encourage you, as I do my own extended family, to think along similar lines of how you may, or may not, be like your own dad. As I do this role play, I intersperse his remarks with mine, in a dialogue as it were, to reflect on my life in light of Dad’s.

Dad: “Before retirement at Kendal community at Hanover (NH), I was part of the Dayton (OH) and Dartmouth (NH) communities, where I was born and bred—as well as Pleasantville (NY) and Home Life Insurance Company in NYC, where I spent 23 and 55 years of my life.”

Dietrich: Dad may have left those beloved communities long ago but, but in his mind and dress, he never really left. I was raised 16 years in one of those communities—“Pleasantville,” the one on which the teenagers-coming-of-age movie by that name was based. Mom and Dad could have been cast for the supportive but naive parent roles in that movie.

Though a Midwesterner for 3+ decades, I’ve lived all my life in the tall shadows and great expectations of those same four defining community roots. That’s where I get my “East coast” and “Type A” personality, my love of football and coaching, my need to be in the center of things (much as NYC is), while preferring to thrive in a small pond (Pleasantville is a small Middleton).

Dad: “I worked for the Home Life Insurance Company, 1934-89, interrupted only by a stint in World War II. I served four years (1942-45) in the Army Air Force—in Miami Beach, the Pentagon, North Africa, and Italy, rising to the rank of Captain. I worked as Agency Secretary in the home office of a NYC life insurance company, keeping all field correspondence and records.”

Dietrich: Dad was eventually replaced by computers, which meant they had to finally drop the company slogan, “Ask Dick Gruen!” Such loyalty—50+ years with one company—is so rare these days, but that’s Dad, loyal (and healthy) to the very end. Over a 41-year stretch, he missed just two days of work. And he loved work as much as I do, but he did not bring it home with him like I do. The work God calls us to—that is our life, not just a job.

Thanks, Dad, for that connection. Yet there was a sad disconnect. As your mental demise overlapped with my work at MOM, you never knew I chose an entirely different line of work, working with the poor. Whereas you hung out with Wall Street-types all your work life.

Thanks, too, for a loyal work ethic. Showing up—that’s what Gruens do. What successful workers, parents and volunteers do. (Ninety percent of success, I’ve been told, is “just showing up.”) Most places, I try to “work for life.” But already, in saying that, you alert readers know I have worked “places” (plural). Still, I regard my current place of employment—Lord willing, but with no guarantees at MOM—as the place where I will happily retire as a “company man.”

Dad: “Home Life was my extended family. Where else could I have found so many wonderful people as associates? Probably my greatest satisfaction was in feeling useful and needed by those who were in the ‘front lines’—the people who had to face the daily challenges of the field job. My greatest concern was that I’d let someone down. Home Life stood by me after my 27-year marriage to the love of my life, Mary Gruen, ended in divorce in 1975. Mary and I raised two fine sons, Dietrich and Bill—my proudest achievements.”

Dietrich: Sadly, this is another instance of “like father, like son.” Dad may have worked himself out of a marriage, or perhaps he worked as much as he did because his marriage didn’t. I had one such marriage-work relationship fall apart the first time around. Dad lived vicariously through his sons, never remarrying. I did remarry, happily, and bonding with sons is equally vital.
I share dad’s regard for co-workers as family and his concern about never letting someone down—though I often do. The happiest I’ve seen Dad was when brother Bill and I surprised him by showing up from out of state to New York City at his first retirement party in 1977 (see photo). We showed up, because we did not want to let him down. Retirement would be hard on him, especially alone, without a wife.

Not so for me. My 3-month sabbatical, just completed, was something like retirement, made all the more enjoyable with a wife to love and all kinds of volunteer activities to do. (Yet Sue married me “for breakfast and dinner—but not for lunch”—so we’re both glad I’m out of the house and back at work.)

Dad: “As my boys’ dad and coach, I used to pace the sidelines during football and baseball seasons. I never missed a game. I’d keep score and scads of statistics on every one. Yet they were not my only family or sports interest. I also ‘bled green’ for my extended Dartmouth family. For 25 years I was Secretary for the Class of ’34. The Big Green is why I chose Hanover as the place I would retire and die. In retirement, I enjoyed sets of tennis, sets of bridge, and setting cross-country skiing records. I never thought I’d top the 103 days cross-country skiing I had the winter of 1994—best snow coverage in years. But then I did 106 days in 1996.”

Dietrich: Here again, like father, like son. I too was my sons’ Little League coach and biggest fan. Gruens keep meticulous records of such things—at work, on the sports field, so also in retirement! Dad’s renowned skiing made him Boston Globe’s poster child for “Active Senior Citizen.” I too love stats and letters—in sports, with family, at work—anywhere. At MOM, record-keeping is essential, but I go overboard, keeping copies of everything. So did Dad. But as his living quarters and mind kept shrinking, in the end we could de-clutter his life. Working in the aftermath of Katrina, I did that for some folks in New Orleans. Regrettably, someone (or some disaster!) must still do that for me.

As for Dad’s loyalty to a college, even my alma mater, that is foreign to me. Then I bonded with 25 Bucknellians at the core of the mission work in Nicaragua last week. And so I may yet bleed “orange and blue”—the color of my alma mater.

Dad: “My most productive years were at Home Life, which was really my life away from home. I knew all the field agents, their spouses and widows; I enjoyed great support in the home office. But, as good as Home Life and Kendal retirement community was for me, I am reassured by my faith in the Lord that I now live in a better place. Now that my mind is clear again and my body is made whole, I am enjoying ‘God’s forever family,’ and my joy is made complete.”

Dietrich: Strangely, Dad did not know the peace of doing “enough” for his sons. Under intense post-Depression expectations, he felt that he had to parlay his savings into more of a financial legacy or bigger nest egg. Hence, he kept entering one sweepstakes contest after another—127 at one time, as we found out from his meticulous records, even of the scammers!

Sadly, Dad did not realize that his achievements, by God’s grace, were already good enough: that having a father’s companionship was enough for admiring sons,… that his love and delight in us was life-giving,… that his savings amply provided college funds, for example, for our kids.

Furthermore, a dad’s legacy is never just about money. Now that Dad, who art in heaven, knows better, may he finally rest in peace and grace with his Heavenly Father. For all you dads “who aren’t in heaven,” our legacy here on earth is largely evident in our children. So take them aside this Memorial Day weekend, or next Father’s Day weekend, and share, with grateful hearts, how you each may like your fathers. Shalom and Amen.

© 2005 Middleton Outreach Ministry

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