Those who know me know there are two men who have most shaped my life. They are my father, Hugo Santucci, and my mentor, Eugene Peterson.
These two men have shown me what a life of integrity and wholeness can look like. The both have invited me into the tender world of their faiths. They have both talked deeply with me, laughed with me, grieved with me, and encouraged me to be the man God has created and gifted me to be.
As I write, my Dad is 92 and halfway to 93. He lives with my family and me in Bend, Oregon. I make his breakfasts. I get him ready for bed. I read the Scriptures and pray with him every day. As he has aged, he has mellowed. The edges have worn off and he is only gentle and smooth.
My Dad showed me what a true husband is as he cared for my Mom for almost 28 years after a massive stroke left her significantly handicapped.
Also as I write, Eugene has just died. The last year hasn’t been been kind on him or his wife, Jan, who has cared for him as dementia stole much of his ability to care for himself. But like my Dad, she has shown herself to be made of stronger and kinder stuff, loving him in his decline whom she has only ever known as an adult with a keen mind and a devout spirit.
Eugene embraced me warmly when I was a student at Regent College, and I served as his teaching assistant for several years. He played a significant role in my pastoral ordination. He invited me to edit a few of his books and to write study guides for five others. He and Jan welcomed my family into their home in Montana on a number of occasions over the years. And he always gave me all the time I needed on the phone throughout the years and responded to every letter I wrote. When my oldest son was two, he called Eugene “My Gene” and he’s been My Gene to my family ever since.
I can hardly speak without echoing these two men, my Dad and Eugene.
My Dad’s banter and playfulness finds its way into so many of my relationships. Eugene’s way of telling stories and articulating our biblical faith mark all of my writing and preaching. The reason I pray the Psalms and write about them so often is directly related to Eugene’s influence on me.
For the past few months, my friend Steven and I tried to plan a trip to see Eugene one last time, but things just didn’t work out as we’d hope and we weren’t able to make it. And every time my Dad sleeps in longer than I expect him to, I wonder if this is the day he leaves.
The day has come that has deprived me of one of them. And another day will follow not too far behind when I will be deprived of the other as well. And I can feel the anxiety all throughout my body. Present grief and anticipated grief well up in me.
I am losing my fathers.
A couple weeks ago, Twenty One Pilots dropped their album Trench with the song “Legend,” which captures so much for me:
You were one of those classic ones
Traveling around this sun
…
All right
You’re a legend in my own mind
My middle name
My goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye
…
I’m sorry I did not visit
Did not know how to take it
When your eyes did not know me
Like I know you
….
Then the day that it happened
I recorded this last bit
I look forward to having
A lunch with you again