With his elderly father suffering from the confusion that comes with too many old-age ailments, Steven Travers felt the two of them still needed to have a heart-to-heart talk.
But he feared it would not be easy.
“I girded myself,” Travers writes in an extremely personal column in the San Francisco-area Marin Independent Journal. “Would he understand? What would I say?”
“I walked in, pulled up a chair, held Dad’s hand and stroked his hair, thinking of Johnny Cash’s song about his own “silver-haired Daddy,” and how I had put some of that very grey on his sweet head.
“Daddy,” I said to him, “you’re the best daddy ever. I love you so much, thank you for being the best daddy any kid ever had.” I had not called him ‘daddy’ since I was about 10 or 11.
Then the miracle, the gift began to manifest itself. It was about 2:30 p.m. July 5. God was in that room the whole time, but his presence became a palpable entity, the truth of which became known by me.
Dad looked at me, his eyes open, bright and clear. He smiled.
“I love you, too, Steve,” he said. All the confusion was replaced by clear, cogent, vivid thoughts and expressions.
“Daddy,” I said, “you have to ask Jesus Christ to forgive you your sins, to repent in your heart. Will you do that, Daddy?”
He smiled. “Of course I do. I love God. I’ve always loved God.”
Over the course of 45 minutes to an hour, I had my last conversation with him. I held his hand and stroked his hair, his head, and kissed him repeatedly …
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