Last year on Father’s Day, this was my Facebook status: There are so many different faces that my dad has worn as a parent. Many of you know the strict, almost mean, dad that reared himself when I was in high school. Many of you know the sarcastic joker who is always giving people a hard time. Many of you know the proud father and grandfather that would do anything for his girls. But today, I celebrate the man who is teaching me to be fearless in the face of whatever life throws my way, to not feel sorry for myself when I’m sick or tired, but to get big, get strong, and to meet the challenge. You know, these are the lessons that he taught me in sports, and now I’m seeing him live them in life. I love you, Daddy, and I’m so damn proud of you.
Little did I know that the next Father’s Day would be the one-month anniversary of his funeral. Some of you knew him, some of you knew of him, but most of you didn’t. As he spent more and more time in the hospital, and even when we brought him home for hospice, I found myself telling more than a couple of nurses and doctors, “This isn’t my dad. I mean, he’s not this sick, elderly man that you see. He runs his dog every morning, he wrestles around, he throws the football in the front yard with us on Super Bowl Sunday.”
When we planned his funeral, we decided that there wouldn’t be a sharing time, just the pastor’s message. My dear Aunt Candy, his youngest sister, read his obituary, but other than that, there were no personal touches. So today, I want to share him with you, to give him the eulogy that I wish I had given him then.
My dad, Allen Lee Builteman, was born in 1938 in rural Oklahoma. He lived for about 12 years in a small town called Yale. Even though he spent the majority of his life living elsewhere, he was always a country boy at heart, and considered Oklahoma is home. I traveled there with him and my mom in 2010 and saw his home, which is still in the family. The garden that his grandmother planted is still growing in the back.
In 1955, he moved with his parents and siblings to Wiesbaden, Germany, where his father was stationed after the war. It was there that he fell in love with Marlene Dietrich and her famous “Lili Marlene,” which I sang to him often in the hospital and at home his last few days.
But his true love was always basketball. When I was younger he coached church league, but gave that up because it wasn’t competitive enough. It was then that he formed a city league team called The Cherokee. Watching these men, many of whom had played professionally in the United States and Europe, was instrumental in forming my identity as an athlete, which has in turn formed my identity as a person. If there was a game that he was playing, he wanted to win. It didn’t matter if it was a friendly scrimmage. He would say, “If we’re keeping score, I want to win.” Me, too.
Let me give you an example: late in his banking career, the bank he worked for hired a new president. To say that the two of them didn’t get along would be an understatement. As a passive-aggressive punishment, the new president moved my dad from Senior Vice President/Manager of their corporate office in Ontario to Senior Vice President/Manager of a small office in San Bernardino. Instead of fighting or complaining, my dad pulled a “Dad Move.” He went after two new accounts: The San Manuel Band of Mission Indians and the Diocese of San Bernardino County. The Natives and the Church. Go Dad! Those two accounts, plus the few that he had brought with him from corporate, made his branch, the small, crappy San Bernardino branch, the #1 highest earning branch in the company. But that was my dad. Excellence.
But one of my favorite things about my dad was the way that he loved my daughters. I can’t really write a whole lot about that right now because it’s just too hard. But trust me, it was awesome. Just look at the pictures. You’ll get the idea. And I also need to say that he comes to visit my 2 1/2 year old. Every now and then, she will tell me that Zha-Zha (her pet name for him) came to her room. Sometimes he tells her, “I looooove Mazie!” Another time she said that he told her she is “getting so big!” I believe it. So I tell her, “Well, next time you see him, tell him that Mama loves him.” “Ok,” she says, and goes about her business.
Mazie and her Zha-Zha, April 1, 2013
That Thursday, he came home for good. He had been off of his morphine and dilaudid for a few hours so he was completely awake. As the paramedics rolled him into the living room, he looked up at all of us, his family that surrounded him, Mom, Aunt Candy, my brother, my daughters, and me, and said to each one of us, “I love you. I love you. I love you all.”
Two days later, he was gone.
When I think of my sweet dad, I think of laughter. I think of country music and cowboy boots. I think of basketball. I think about the Oklahoma Sooners and his love for the city of New Orleans. I see him wearing one of his newsboy caps. I remember running for cover with him, laughing, in the New Orleans rain. I remember his puffed up chest at my college graduation. I remember him holding me when I woke up crying, in my adulthood, from a bad break-up. I smell his ChapStick. I see his crystal green eyes. I watch him do his little hop after fielding a ground ball. I can see him shooting free throws: how he held his hands before, during, and after his shot. And finally, I can see the sincerity in his eyes the last time he told me he loved me.
Full Of Graces 