December 28

This handsome man was my father's father, Gordon Jackson Dodd. He was born April 13, 1888 and died December 28, 1977. I only remember him as an old man, but he had a lovely smile. I think he was quite good-looking as a young man, although I don't know when or why this particular photograph was taken. I worked for him on his farm the summer I was fourteen. He was a difficult man in many ways and he and I did not see eye-to-eye on lots of things even then, but there is no doubt he had a big influence on my childhood.

The last time I saw him, he was in a nursing home and my mother and I went to visit. He was friendly, but I could tell he was trying to figure out who we were. You could tell when it clicked because all of a sudden he smiled that big lovely smile. Because I had become Catholic and was in a monastery, I suspected he did not approve of me. What he said to me, however, on that occasion was simply, "A man's got to do what a man's got to do." It felt like a blessing on my strange journey, whether he meant it that way or not.

Although I had begun my doctoral studies in Washington, DC in the fall of 1977, I happened to be in Texas when he died and was able to attend his funeral and serve (I think) as an honorary pall bearer.