Among all the many and varied studies I have pursued throughout my life, I have been fascinated most by two things: music, and the stars. I don't remember the first time I recognized having those interests, but over the years, I have come to realize that I inherited much of both of them from my father.

Music came first. Though Mom's love of it was more obvious — singing with the radio or the record player or the TV or just because she felt like it — it was Dad's love of classical and popular music and his playing of the electric organs we owned that fascinated me most. Hearing the beautiful music of what I only later learned were the great composers is a vivid memory of my childhood, like the collection of records we listened to that Mom and Dad had gotten as bonus items from the local grocery store. In high school, when I sang in the choirs and performed in plays, I remember Dad as being hesitant to come the first time I was in a performance with the school orchestra — rather discouraging, I thought at the time, until after the play was over, when he proclaimed with considerable relief that the orchestra didn't stink! Apparently, after suffering through concerts at my eldest sister’s high school, he had feared being subjected to another amateur orchestra with a string section so bad, it could drive even the most tone-deaf person to tears. It was then that I truly began to realize that Dad not only loved music but was a trained musician, and that he genuinely wanted to encourage my interest in music, since after that, he never missed another concert or musical in which I participated. When I was in college and majored in music education, I started teaching myself to play the guitar on a rather cheesy one I'd borrowed from a friend. I suspect that my birthday gift that year — a new guitar of my own — was prompted by Dad wincing at the out-of-tune music that was the best my borrowed instrument could manage. During these last few years, Dad's ongoing efforts to produce piano performances of the works of Scott Joplin using his home computer helped me to realize what could be achieved using MIDI and electronically sampled sound. Dad's work turned on a light bulb for me, for it was the encouragement of his efforts that awakened in me a passion for composing symphonies — a gift I had never quite realized was in me, as most of my previous musical composition had been songs. Even in his latter years, Dad continued to teach by inspiration and example.

My fascination with the stars came later, and started, I'm sure, with the watching of every televised launch of every space capsule that was sent aloft by the US space program. The whole family watched together, when possible, and I sometimes wondered why my parents, Dad in particular, were so fascinated by them. It was only later that I discovered that Dad's work for GM was part of the creation of the inertial guidance systems used by NASA on the Apollo project, a job in which he clearly took great satisfaction, and for which I was very proud of him. Seeing his elation over the first moon landing and his concern over the near tragedy of Apollo XIII, I could feel that there was a part of him riding with those men into space, that he was as much a member of those missions as anyone in the capsules or in ground control. These were the masterpieces of his work in engineering, the symphonies of that art, and watching them come to a successful conclusion was no doubt as satisfying for him as a conductor leading his orchestra to a triumphant finale.

In my mind, that is Dad, and has always been: a mixture of creative art and scientific discipline combined not to apparent contradiction, but to wonderful effect: discipline and spontaneity in remarkable harmony, strength and gentility in equal measure — the heart of a teddy bear under the clothing of a lion. I could not have hoped for a better example for my own life, nor a better father. He gave me the discipline to know my boundaries, but also the imagination to transcend them, if I would, in whatever direction I chose. He guided subtly, but did not push, and never once told me that I was not capable of doing something. He taught me to stand up for myself, and to have faith in my own abilities when others dismissed or belittled them.

I cannot ever remember Dad as a quitter, not even when the odds seemed impossible and the task at hand insurmountable. I know that it was through him that I grew to believe, beyond any doubt, that the only real failure in life is refusing to try. Looking back and recalling all the books on the shelves around my childhood home, I remember quite vividly one called "Build Your Dream House for $5,000 or Less." I had no idea why we had that book until I was older, and discovered that Dad had bought it to learn from when he tore the roof off our tiny two-bedroom tract house to build a second story to help affordably shelter his growing family. Whenever I drive through the old neighborhood and see that house — still the only two-story home among all the other little identical boxes built over fifty years ago — I think of Dad and how he set us all a great example for our lives: If you don't know how but have a need or a dream, you can go out and teach yourself how to achieve it if you will only try. Yes, you will encounter frustrations and limitations, but if you make the effort with the belief that you can teach yourself to succeed, you will often find that you can do more than you had dared to dream. Before I was born, when Dad started his own TV repair business, he had the courage to dream even when others scoffed at him. He had the strength to keep trying despite criticism and the odds, and even when the long hours and heavy work of that business became too much for him to handle, especially with a growing family, he had the courage to move on and start again to provide for us. Knowing this, and all the things he accomplished in the following years and throughout his life, I can say with confidence that I wouldn't trade my Dad for any other in the world, and I am as proud to be able to say that I am his daughter as I am of him.

Over the years, I heard Dad talk on occasion about getting a pilot's license, and though he never did, I feel he has flown higher in spirit than even the astronauts who rode the vessels his engineering skills helped guide into space and brought safely home. There is a poem that I feel must describe both the joy he felt in watching those missions, and feels now that he is freed of the pain and illness and sheer weariness that slowed and finally stopped his steps. Though it would seem now that he has met the final obstacle he could not overcome, I believe that he has not given up or failed, but has found his way through this barrier to a better place where the limitations of the flesh are no longer a hindrance to what the mind and heart can conceive. The poem is "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, jr.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Thank you, Dad, for what you gave the world, and what you gave us, your children. You not only gave us life, but you gave us the freedom to choose our own paths in living it. You gave us the room to make mistakes, and the strength to accept them as a part of being human, along with the courage to move on, hopefully a little wiser for the experience. You gave us not only discipline, but also the imagination to envision our lives and to go out and make them as we would, not only by hard work, but also with satisfaction, pride, and joy. And more than anything, you gave us love. I always knew that if ever we lost our direction, you would be there with a helping hand of support so we could find our way home. I love you, Dad, and I know that you have found the peace and happiness you deserve in your new home with God. Though it hurts to lose you now, I know in my heart that this is not "goodbye," but only "until we meet again."