Lymph Journal # 45 Happy Birthday Dad

3/17/2012

We’re into the weekend here (a “holiday” weekend for all you Irishmen & women) and things are a bit more quiet in the courtyard - the view of which I lost today after being moved to a new room right next door but no balcony and the window bed was already occupied – oh well.  Falling leaves or duck behavior I can comment little on (I can hear the sighs of relief from regular readers).  On weekends the menu only has one non-vegetarian choice rather than the normal two (actually they print 2 identical choices so as not to throw off the symmetry of the seven day menu).  The weekend shift of nurses means new faces to get used to – so far, this morning included, they’ve all been good.  My roomie went home after his marrow donation – a good guy.  My new roomie is a young (late 20s?) patient under treatment rather than a well person doing a good deed.

So far, so good as it comes to tolerating this blast of chemo.  The battery of anti-nausea medication has been working well.  Where was this stuff when I was a fisherman?  The first nine months of that life had me far to well acquainted with nausea (note “sea” is the second syllable).  I was reading a novel with a sailing setting the other day and the description of the newby’s struggle with mal de mer went something like this: “For the first days she thought she was about to die.  In the days following she feared she would not”.  Yup, nailed that!  I don’t like nausea and seasickness is just plain the worst.

So, let’s tie a few threads here together.  It’s St. Patrick’s Day a day which has always made it easy to remember the more important, to me, anniversary and that is my dad’s birthday.  My dad, through sheer benevolent nepotism, was also my boss, better I should say my captain, for the eight years I spent as a fisherman.  A “site” (the position of a regular, share of the net catch worth earning crewman) on his boat was considered a very fortunate job.  So today it will be a shout out to the memory of some things about my dad.

My dad was a good man.  Good in the human sense. I know, biblically, doctrinally speaking that there’s no such thing but that really means no one’s good enough to meet God’s standard of good enough and that’s the whole reason why an infinitely good God sacrificed Himself – to allow us to be good by His sacrifice and to be able to enjoy Him now and forever.

But Dad was a good guy.  He was a good guy during my younger years.  After he came to faith in Christ while I was in high school he became a truly good guy. 

By the way, Dad’s objection to faith was largely of intellectual type. What helped push him that step beyond where a believing wife, six believing kids, and a Baptist pastor as one of his best friends had urged him was reading about the life of Paul.  Paul was an intellectual, a powerful one, who had met the Christ he was persecuting.  He met a risen Christ and it’s tough to argue against a risen guy who claimed to be God.  Somehow the two things, resurrection and divinity, are mutually reinforcing.  If this makes you go, “Really now.”, check out a reputable apologist’s (Strobel, McDowell, Lewis, etc.) summary of the proofs of resurrection.  Whenever I have my doubts I have to go back and say that a historically resurrected Savior demands my faith if I want to be honest to he truth.

What are some of the things that were good about Dad?  I’ll list and describe just a few of the many things I admire.

He loved his family and did is best for them.  I know this can be said of many but it had its particular challenges for Dad.  Dad honored his own parents and this, from my experiences with them, was not easy.  They were highly opinionated, especially about what other people should specifically do.  Their expectations for others had little to do with the individuals and everything to do with their vision for perfection, not often based on values shared by their son, his wife or their grandchildren. Dad, their only son, chose one fine woman for a wife and together they raised six kids.  None of these kids really towed the specified line with the grandparents but, to the approval of others, none of them have spent a day in jail and all of them follow the Lord.  These paths were often distasteful to Dad’s parents.  So for Dad to honor his parents as he protected his own family was always a challenge and he tried his best and showed more grace than I can imagine myself demonstrating. 

I admire him in this and also see that he did his best to break this chain of what could be a family curse.  I always felt Dad was behind me in my decisions.  Considering what he came out of, that’s huge.

There are so many other tokens of his devotion to family.  He was, and remained his whole life, the love of Mom’s life and vice versa.   Family vacations for a family of eight with the camper – always an adventure (I particularly remember riding air mattresses down rapids in the Penobscot River – skating close to the edge of safety, but what could go wrong with Dad there).  He had five sons and was fond of recalling that, at the announcement that child # 6 was another boy, he said sarcastically something like “Great, more Pack Meetings!” – anyone who was taken a son through Cub Scouts catches his drift.  He went (when he wasn’t fishing, mom didn’t only just deliver 5 sons but she took up the slack there).  His support of Scouting led to the first Allagash River canoe trip (I was too young for that one but was thrilled by the slides) that, in turn, led to a tradition of canoe trip for the Kraines boys (my sister missed out but got a fishing trawler named after her).  Truly, a wonderful experience.   

Dad shooting the falls with son Mark

Dad watching as two sons capsize and swamp - twice, third time's the charm

Six kids college educated at Mom and Dad’s expense.  The long held July Fourth family clambake that so often stretched the definition and total number of family and included, for the nuclear family members, the clash of the plaids was so much a Dad thing (which in no way implies others didn’t work, we all had our roles not the least to mention Mom, but Dad seemed the heart of it).  The grandkids, all twenty, experienced his goodness.  The list goes on in the memories of family.

Dad made a great Deacon.  His natural bent toward helpfulness and his belief that there was a solution to every problem joined his Christian compassion and benefitted many inside and outside the church body.  Much of his work was unknown to many then and probably still is now.  It was a great fit for his years after fishing.

Dad's first boat of his own

Cap'n Bob hauling the "bag" on board the Karen Louise

Dad cleaning Yellowfin Tuna on a memorable but not very profitable trip

As a boat owner and captain (Captain Bob) he was a good man.  In this business that was so marked by transience, most guys that worked for him did so for long periods of time.  In a business marked by high rates of alcoholism, his boats were dry.  The crew wasn’t necessarily dry but they always got one extra chance after showing up drunk the first time, after that they had to look elsewhere for work.  Dad didn’t preach or get all heavy-handed about it, he just exhibited a good life unencumbered by excessive drink and its attendant problems.  The upshot of this was that many a crewman left behind alcohol abuse after a stint on the boat.  His concern and sense of responsibility for “making a living” for the crew, and his personal friendship and advice for them made a huge difference in many a guy’s life.  Two comments were made at Dad’s funeral, one publicly and one privately.  One of his long-time crew stood up to speak at the funeral and said as his opening statement, “Bob Kraines saved my life.”  Wow!  The other private comment was made to me by a crew member that had worked for Dad before and during part of my tenure on the boat.  He said, “Whenever I have a tough question about what I should decide I find myself asking, ‘What would Bob Kraines do?’”  Wow!

Dad fished commercially most of his professional life after a BA in Business on the GI Bill.  He never was famous; he never joined glamorous organizations (the now defunct Point Judith Fisherman’s Cooperative didn’t go in for glamor); he didn’t blow his own horn.  He just lived the life of am imperfect but deeply good man and in that quiet way he touched so many people.  I worked during college part time in a local funeral home.  I’ve been to more funerals that most of you reading this.  I have never seen a church so packed or a funeral procession so long as the one composed of those who came to honor Dad directly or recognize the impact he had on the particular family member they knew.

As I face a life threatening illness at age 54, I can’t help but remember Dad’s first heart attack at age 55.  For me it meant my dad was mortal.  It hit hard personally.  Dad went on to have 20+ more years of life for which we all rejoice.  But I remember how hard it was, how weird it felt to recognize my dad’s mortality.  I was able to share that feeling with Carl when I was diagnosed with this aggressive disease.  I hope it gives him, Sam, Amanda and Hannah permission to “process” well. 

But more I’d like to take a page from Dad’s book and exhibit to my kids that I believe their decisions and directions in life are their own but my wish for them is that wherever they go and do that they go and do so walking in relationship with the infinitely good God that my dad, their grandfather found to be more that sufficient to meet life and death.  So kids walk with God and try to stay out of jail for anything stupid – the rest is gravy and even the less than perfect choices can and will be redeemed by the God of redemption as you walk with Him.

I’ll close with this quote from an email I received from a good friend and fellow missionary in Europe who knew my family and often stayed with Mom and Dad while home in Rhode Island (David Lohnes – many will recognize the name).  It was sent when he heard of Dad’s passing.

“What a great man was your father.

I just thought he was wonderful, such a fine mixture of Godliness and humanity, just like it should be.

No more enemies, then…for your dad!

This was the last one.”

And those who knew him and share in the hope of Christ join and say, “Amen!”