Stubborn

Last night, I opened my laptop. I clicked open my web browser and navigated to Merriam-Webster dot com. At the top of the page was the search field, which I clicked on and entered a word: STUBBORN. I pressed enter. And what I saw next, shocked me… Nowhere on the page was a picture of Dave Neeme.

Shocking indeed.

I began to read the definitions of the word, and a wave of relief washed over me. Despite the lack of photographic evidence, I was in fact on my dad’s homepage.

“Difficult to handle or manage.” Stating the obvious never felt so good.

Another one read “Unreasonably unyielding. Resolute.” Well the unreasonable part was clear as day, at least to my brothers and I. Unreasonable was his refusal to refrigerate and reheat any food after a only a few hours had passed, despite him having cooked that food in the first place. Unreasonable was ALSO the man’s refusal to wear long sleeves in the middle of a Michigan winter.

I read some more and I found a definition that said, “Performed or carried on in a persistent manner.” And I began to let my mind wander and remember all the ways this definition, defined my dad.

One thing that was true throughout our lives, was that my dad loved people. He loved interacting with people, he loved getting to know people, and there was no maximum to the number of people that he could ever meet and chat with. Dave Neeme loved a chat.

And people loved a chat with Dave Neeme.

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, we’re going to have to be the bearer of sad news to various people around town—a grocery store cashier here, a pharmacist there—who will ask how our dad is doing. Because he was persistent in saying hi and having a chat with virtually everyone, and they had the true pleasure of getting to know him and having regular chats with him.

There was nobody that he loved having chats with more than his family. His love for me and my brothers was clear, and I could stand here for hours describing how much he simply wanted us to be happy. He would do anything for any of us, and while he might’ve been too stubborn to run the risk of ever being labeled as an emotional kinda guy, I’m now well aware that that is exactly what he was doing through his words and his actions.

My wife would later learn the ways of Dave’s chats, which would take place before her late riser husband would eventually find them at the tail end of an hour long morning chat over coffee. In fact Busi might be the only one who could hold a candle to my Dad’s siblings and the endless banter that passed between them over the years. It was Dave’s love language.

And there was no questioning my dad’s devotion and deepest of love for his high school sweetheart, my mom. His partner in unreasonable crime. A stubborn type of love that lasted through 7 years of dating and over 50 years of marriage.

We’ll miss all these things about my dad, and so much more. Missing him will be a stubborn, persistent feeling for the foreseeable future. Because his love for other people was exactly that, and we will love him for it. Forever.