At 78, my Dad, Reverend Daniel R. Duncan passed away. It was Tuesday, 3:40 in the afternoon December 14, 2010. Fourteen members of his family were in the room with him, including his three sons and his only daughter. I’m his first born and I had the privilege of sitting at his right hand as he struggled to finish his life. Seven years after the onslaught of Alzheimer’s, and two years spent recovering from a stroke. “Nobody should have to live like this” he said just two months ago.
I too, had my questions about the final years of a Godly man, “rewarded” by some sort of banishment, relegated to near helplessness and dependency on others for the smallest details of life. Wondering about the frightening experience of losing the things you are good at, in his case, assembling words and insights. But then I trust God, and follow Jesus Christ, because my dad did! He always spoke of spending eternity with God. It was a weekly mantra in his ministry. “do you know where you will spend eternity?” he would say at the close of every sermon.
For me, it was not what he said on the platform that caused my determinations in life; it was the way that he lived! He was a genuine man. My earliest recollections of envy came at the kitchen table, hearing my dad recite humorous limericks. “there was a young man from Saint Paul, who fell in the spring in the fall, t’would have been a bad thing if he died in the spring, but he didn’t he died in the fall”.
All of his children can sit for hours reciting his sayings, and his quotes from his own enthusiastic pursuit of the Joy in words. His Humor could be seen even in the seriousness of circumstances. He was required to send a note of acknowledgement to my teacher one year, to affirm that he knew I was being “disruptive” in class. His note read: “I understand that a general cessation in superfluous vocables is considered necessary for an atmosphere conducive to satisfactory learning conditions” He was a hit with my English teacher after that. She read the note to the class and posted it on the bulletin board for the other teachers to smile at.
In his prime, he was a lean five foot eight with wavy black hair and a pencil thin mustache. He looked more Puerto Rican in early pictures than a man of Scot’s-Irish decent. He knew how to dress the part of the fiery evangelist he set his sights on from an early age. In a suit and tie he was all business. But he always looked more like himself to me in pictures of his brash and confident youth. A Pencil on his ear, in a plain white t shirt and hand cuffed blue Levis. He was the country product of a Pentecostal upbringing born of Old fashioned camp meetings.
Raised on the Western Slope of the Colorado Rockies, he had a fondness for all things outdoors. And it showed in his oil paintings of his favorite panoramas. All with the broad sweeping views of mountains, lakes and evergreens. Trees spreading branches to a bigger sky, was the way he saw “worship” of the creator that he knew. The details around them filled in with the signs of his early farm boy childhood: barbed wire fences and weather beaten fence posts, barns and bridges and discarded farm equipment.
He sang often, out loud and without provocation. He accompanied himself on guitar mostly, sometimes piano, but always in sweet western music style and in his high tenor voice. Reminiscent of Son’s of the Pioneers or Roy Rogers singing “happy trails”. “Home on the Range” could have been his theme song, happy, upbeat with just a touch of transience.
He was drawn to people and they to him, class clown and class president too of course at Delta High. He was creative and his flare for non conformity shined through in his choice over the usual daily dress of his peers, to rather wear button down white shirts with a different colored bow tie every day. “I only had seven or eight, but rumor had it that I had one for every day of the year” he mentioned.
His body language was dramatic and demonstrative and his laughter was quick and loud. He wielded quips and quotes like an expert swordsman, balancing witticisms and a smile with his awareness of the hardships in daily life. He always led with humor and a handshake. And it served him well throughout his life. “I’m Dan and you probably know who you are” he was known to say even in his later years.
He married his childhood sweet heart, Barbara Forney from the neighboring town of Grand Junction, Colorado. He rolled her down Main Street in a wheel barrow after the ceremony. They met at a church camp when she was 11 and he 13. A preacher’s kid friend introduced him to her, “this is Danny” he said “and he already knows who you are!” They both worked summer vacations through their teen years; “picking and packing peaches in the Palisades” he would love to have said just for the alliteration. They would later sing duets in his beginning ministry.
After Bible College in Waxahachie, Texas, he began in earnest to pursue his primary passion and propensity for preaching. But only a personal relationship to God could have propelled him through fifty years of faithful service to God’s people. It is an often thankless job, not for a man given to a need to be personally validated frequently. Frankly I think he simply kept himself entertained within his own pursuit of insight. Something I recognize as part of my own inheritance.
His best sermons were off the platform, in his daily interactions with those he loved. He was king of church socials, his easy laughter and good humor were attractive to the often downtrodden who could not miss the unmistakable mark of his pure passion for living and sharing the experience. He was a preacher, and though he loved expounding on the truth in scripture he was not a “bible thumper”. In the face of the failures of others he was surprisingly silent. He knew how to be stern without condemnation. Perhaps he understood all too well how we manage to punish ourselves sufficiently for our own mistakes.
He pioneered churches and led congregations from Colorado to Utah, Washington State and finally several cities in North Carolina. He went from evangelist to pastor, teacher to counselor as needed. He delivered his official roles as church business administrator, sermon preparer, visitation to hospitals and house calls, funerals, weddings and baby dedications without the slightest fanfare.
He never stopped being a father even as his own children left the nest. He joined my mom in foster parenting many boys, mostly those least likely to be adopted by a family. Already familiar, I imagine, with raising three non conformist boys and one girl cut from that same cloth. He was a patient man! Even the adopted children noted his dedication to ministry, up at six a.m. every morning to pray, read the Bible, followed by daily “field work” outside the house and church.
I lived on the opposite coast from him over most of my adult life, but I remember him calling just to tell me a joke.. an Indian child asking his father “how do we get our names?” ,with a detailed and longer description of an Indian mother, after the birth, seeing the first thing outside the tee pee as a sign from the Great Spirit of what to name her child.. such as “running deer”, or “howling wolf”, or “soaring eagle”… followed by the punch line “why do you ask pooping dog?” And I’ve laughed at that joke for many years after that call.
Even more remarkable is that all of his children recall, upon discovering the humor in circumstance, a profound compelling to share it with their father knowing how he would resonate. And when I laugh, I often think of my dad.
After the funeral, many friends said “I’m sorry for your loss”. But I inherited more than I could ever lose. I can say as Jesus did in John 14:9 “anyone who has seen me has seen my father”. And later on in John 10:30 “I and my father are one”. And when I look at my own sons I can still see my father. He shines through them in every nuance of their beings. I see in them his mannerisms.
But the real strength of my father was that my father knew his heavenly father and lived as a sanctified and righteous man. It would shine greatest in how he handled the difficulties of his own failing health. I remember Second Corinthians 12:9 “my grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in your weakness”. Suffering a stroke and many years of the steadily declining mind, that Alzheimer’s brings, he would often say, in moments of clarity, “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be like this”. And “I didn’t mean to have a stroke”.
His grandson shared with the family that on a particularly hard day, in a belligerent and uncooperative disposition as a result of this disease, this man who’d given his life serving others looked at him with no sense of entitlement and said “I know what you are doing for me”. It was as if God had spoken through him directly, the words God himself would say to us when we are selfless and unnoticed in our service and kindness to others. My Dad was that man!
