Delivered on October 20, 2018, at Bethany Baptist Church in Myakka City, Florida.

Last night, as my family sat around my sister Melissa’s fire pit, we took turns sharing stories about Dad.  One of the things that came up over and over again was how darn funny he was.  Dad liked to inject humor in life as often as he could.  Even his disciplinary tactics were sometimes calculated to get a laugh.  He’d go to spank one of us, and he’d say with a straight face, “This is going to hurt you more than it hurts me.”  Sometimes, if he had the energy, he’d make ALL the kids come to the living room and watch as one of our siblings got spanked.  He’d line us up on the couch and warn us that if we laughed, we’d be the next  one over his knee.  He’d then proceed to spank the guilty child, but as he did, he’d look at us and make every silly facial expression and noise he could until inevitably one or all of us would start laughing and then we’d be the next to get spanked.  This cycle continued until everyone of us had been spanked, sometimes more than once, or until his right arm got too tired, whichever came first.  We’d say, “But daddy, we didn’t do anything wrong, why’d we get spanked too?” and he’d say “Oh, I’m sure you’ve done something and got away with it,” which was so wise and true.

Even though daddy did not hesitate to exercise his fatherly authority to keep us in line, nobody else better dare mess with his kids.  Numerous times, my dad went down to Southeast High School and had words with the principal or the dean or a teacher to advocate on behalf of his children.  Legend has it that one particularly macho coach who suspended my brother Will was reduced to tears by the time my dad got through with him.  He certainly earned quite a reputation in the school district.  Fortunately, dad never had to come down to school for me, but once I was selected to introduce the School Superintendent, Gene Witt, at a dinner for honor students.  During dinner, when Mr. Witt saw the name Moran on my name tag, his eyes grew wide as saucers and he said, “You’re not related to EARL Moran, are you?” and I said, “Yes, sir, that’s my daddy!”  Mr. Witt was on his best behavior for the rest of the evening.

For the most part, my daddy was so polite and friendly to those he encountered through life, but he did not suffer fools or trespassers on his land.  I’ll never forget the time a little old lady peddling Watchtower Pamphlets made the mistake of coming down our dirt lane and knocking on our front door.  Daddy leaped up from his recliner and I could hear their conversation from the living room.  The lady told Dad that she wanted to tell him about her faith as a Jehovah’s witness, and he told her “Look, ma’am, I’m a Christian.  Now, git the HELL off my property and git between those fence posts.”  The old lady beat a quick path to her car, and when dad walked back in the living room, I said, “Wow, Dad, I think you really convinced her what a good Christian man you are,” and we both busted out laughing.  Similar scenarios played out many times over the years, whether it was an ill-advised door-to-door vacuum salesman or an extremely brave neighborhood kid coming down our pitch black lane on Halloween night.

My Dad was really quite brilliant.  He could do long division in his head, and I used to enjoy testing him to see if he came up with the right answer, and he always did.  What he may have lacked in formal education he made up for in spades in real life experience and unbending tenacity.  As a teenager and young woman, I was keenly interested in higher education and politics and routinely engaged my dad in long, heated discussions trying to enlighten him about what I considered his outdated way of thinking.  I think I honed my skills as a lawyer trying to debate with my dad, but I never won a single argument.   He’d just say, “Don’t be bringin’ your women’s lib up here on me,” and his convictions never wavered.  He made sure I didn’t get too big for my britches either.  Even as a college student in my early 20s, when I wore a business suit to my job at the state attorney’s office, when I came home, I had to slip on my daddy’s black rubber boots and slop the hogs out back.  He also delighted in making me bring him coffee by yelling out, “Coff’ming, Merz” and once offered to put me on the back of his pick-up truck and take me to Myakka to find a husband.

I know that my dad was proud of his kids, even though he had trouble directly expressing his emotions.  Luckily, my dad was such a talker that we’d hear about all the nice things he was saying about us secondhand.  Once when I was home from law school for the weekend, I went to the Farmer’s Inn to buy an Orange soda and the cashier Miss Dot said, “Oh, Marilyn, your daddy’s in here all the time and he just brags and brags on you.”  I said, “Who, MY DAD?”  And she said, “Yes, your dad, Earl Moran.”  I was so thrilled and shocked  that I went straight home and told my dad that I knew what he’d been saying.   About 13 years ago, when I was litigating a breach of contract case involving a hay farmer in Vero Beach, my dad called me up the night before the trial and said he was planning on driving over to watch.  I honestly did not think he’d actually show up, but the next morning, when I walked into that courtroom and saw my dear old dad in the back row, I thought I would burst with pride.  I felt so loved.

Later that same year, when I found out I was going to have a child, I was so scared of how my daddy would react.  Because I was single at the time, I was afraid he’d be ashamed of me for bringing dishonor to our family name, which was always so important to him.  To my surprise, though, when my Dad learned the news he just called me up, and he was so kind and supportive.  I said, “Gee, Dad, I thought you’d be angry with me,” and he said “Ah, hell, Marilyn.  We’re family.  If you went to prison, I’d bring ya cigarettes.”  It’s such a funny thing to say, and one of the countless “Earlisms” I heard throughout the years, but it meant the world to me because I knew, in my Dad’s own way, he was assuring me that he loved me and nothing would ever change that.

My dad was a man of simple tastes.  When the cell phone tower was installed on his back 20, he called me up and told me how beautiful it was and said it looked “just like the Eiffel Tower.”  But wherever I went in the world, when I’d call him and tell him what an amazing sight I was beholding, whether it was from the backseat of a Yellow Cab driving into New York City for the first time, or a phone booth overlooking the Mediterranean on the French Riviera, he’d act totally unimpressed and change the subject to something important, like a good mess of greens he prepared or the addition of a new calf to his herd. I once got a photographer’s pass to be on the field of an Oakland Raiders game.   I called Dad during the game and was screaming into the phone due to all the noise and commotion with players crashing all around me and I said, “Dad, guess where I am?  I’m in California at an Oakland Raiders game!  I’m on the actual football field!”  He said, “Oh, yeah?” and immediately asked, “How’d those people at your law firm like those tomatoes I sent them?”   That was typical of my dad.  In the hierarchy of things he valued, there was little that impressed him more than a really good batch of tomatoes.

My dad loved God and spent many years of his life teaching Sunday School in Loxahatchee and here at Bethany and serving as a Deacon.  Later on, even when he was not in church, he’d spend hours listening to preaching and Christian music on television.  Some of my best memories are when I’d take my mom and dad to the Gaither Homecoming concert whenever it came through Tampa or Orlando, or when I went with my Dad to the Gospel Jamboree at Christian Retreat.

After his stroke, I’d come pick my dad up and take him to all his favorite places.  We’d go to Goodwill, and the Bargain Barn,  and Dollar General, and the Flowers bakery store, and to a really stinky meat shop and vegetable market in Samoset for fresh produce.  We’d listen to George Jones and Johnny Cash, and as we drove around town he’d lean in mere inches from my face and tell me his stories and his jokes, some of which I had heard a dozen times before.

The truth is, I tried to drive over from Orlando and visit my Dad when I could, but I didn’t do it nearly often enough.  My sisters, Melanie, Melinda, and Melissa, did most of the hard work of making sure my dad got the attention and the care he needed and that his affairs were kept in order while he was in assisted living.  They made so many sacrifices to help him and visit him and honor him during the last years of his life, and I am so grateful to them and I want to thank them on behalf of our whole family from the bottom of my heart for all they did for our Dad.  I also want to thank my Aunt Geraleen and my uncles for faithfully visiting and calling my Dad and bringing him his favorite Southern dishes.  That meant so much to him and to us as well.

During this last week, memories of my dad have come flooding back to me, and I’ve shed so many tears.  But when I look back on the thousands of moments I shared with my dad, I no longer focus on the disagreements we had or the times of estrangement, but the many, many good times we shared instead.  I’ve also started seeing my Dad differently – through a lens of maturity instead of the lens of a child.  My Dad, like all of us, was just a sinner saved by grace trying to get through life the best he knew how.  He made mistakes, but his life had tremendous, precious value to me and my family, and so many others he touched along the way.

So, Dad, here in this sacred and special place, your children want you to know that we are proud to call you father and we love you.  We will miss you so much, but we promise that we will remember you, we will tell others about you, and we will share your stories and jokes for the rest of our lives, until we see you again in heaven.