My father - a man of style and substance

Carolyn Cooper, Contributor

Last Sunday, we buried our father in the St Ann's Bay cemetery. It's a ramshackle place, certainly not the ideal setting for one's final rest. The minister who offered the prayer of committal asked God more than once to remember the burial spot so my father could be found on the resurrection morning.

Mere mortals could easily lose track of relatives. But the magnificent view out to sea does compensate somewhat for the badly kept grounds.

My father, Daniel George Cooper, was a tailor by trade. The suits he built, layer on top of layer, would make an architect proud. But his true calling was minister of the gospel of Christ. Instead of going to England in 1953 to work at a clothing factory, he should have enrolled in West Indies College, now Northern Caribbean University, to study theology. That was his lifelong passion.

On his return from the UK, he had a memorable encounter in downtown Kingston. He was propositioned by a woman on the street. She was not a street-walker and her interest in him was neither sexual nor romantic. She owned a church and was looking for a pastor. He had just the right image. Tall and handsome, yet sober-looking, he was guaranteed to excite the church sisters to complete ecstasy. And he would be very well paid.

Needless to say, Daniel George was not amused. Im just run her. He was not prepared to prostitute his ministerial bearing and good looks for filthy lucre. His pastoral labour was always freelance and unpaid, except for the great pleasure he gained from it. When he used to come to Kingston to spend time with me and to visit doctors, I was amazed at his religious zeal. No Jehovah's Witness could outdo him.

He was always armed with tracts which he freely distributed to other patients. I would say to him, "Please stop harassing people." And in all innocence he would ask them, "Am I harassing you?" Nobody ever had the courage to tell him yes. He would have immediately detected a fatal moral flaw that needed surgery. Not even his doctors were immune to his ministrations. He would tell them they needed the Great Physician.

BLACK HAIR, OLD FACE

My father's most challenging mission field was his own family. He was distressed that some of us don't go to church regularly. And those who do are not all Seventh-day Adventist. When he started up on me I would remind him of the text, 'Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.' I would then facetily say, "Take your pick. Is either I wasn't trained, I'm not old or I haven't departed". He would sigh sorrowfully. When he complained about the immodesty of my wearing jewellery, I asked him where the children of Israel got gold from to make the golden calf. They must have had jewellery. He stopped bothering me about that.

In his own way, my father loved to bling. He could be quite vain. There was a time when he used to dye his hair an improbable black. Like many senior citizens, he didn't seem to realise that black hair on top of old face simply makes you look very, very old. Not quite the effect you intended. He once made the mistake of remarking to my sister, Donnette, "What a way yu hair getting grey"! To which she wickedly replied, "But you are the only one in the family who don't have grey hair"! After that, he resigned himself to letting nature take its course. With the grey hair, that is.

When his hearing started to go, he refused to consider the possibility of getting a hearing aid. That was definitely not jewellery. I asked him if he preferred to let people think he was stupid when he gave foolish answers to questions he could not hear. He broke down and agreed to get the hearing aid when we told him we would get the little one that goes in the ear. The best joke was that the battery was so small he couldn't see to put it in.

When his legs got a little unsure, one of his friends in England sent him a beautiful walking stick. He wouldn't be caught dead leaning on it and treated it like a fashion accessory. Alarmed, I said to him, 'If you fall down an bruck any part of yu body, don't even call me. If, at your age, you can't accept the fact that you need the walking stick, when will you"? To which he patiently replied, "When yu get to my age, yu will understand."

I doubt very much that I will get to his age. He would have been 97 on March 1. But I already understand what he meant. At no stage in life should you decide to just mash up. It's about self-esteem. Our father was the original Pulse model. His son, Kingsley, learnt his lesson well.

Carolyn Cooper is a professor of literary and cultural studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona. Visit her bilingual blog at http://carolynjoycooper.wordpress.com. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and karokupa@gmail.com.