Another Great Man Passes

He was not known widely. His biography will not be published. His funeral will not be attended by celebrities. Flags across our nation will not be flown at half mast. His family will have to pay the media to print a small notice regarding his death. But he was a great man to those who were close enough to notice.

Great men are seldom known as “great men” while they are alive or even when they’re gone. His wife and children will probably read this label as a polite overstatement. But why should we lavish these weighty words on fools and demand modest understatement in the case of worthy people? Granted, words like “great” and “wonderful” ought to be reserved for the only one who truly fills them—God. But speaking as an earthling, what is a great man? Webster defines greatness as “unusual or considerable in degree.” His twenty-three meanings use words like, notable, outstanding, or distinguished—all of these fit this man. He was a great man in a small society where this adjective is frequently paired with cakes, roast beef gravy, and furniture repair projects rather than people. Now is the time to break this tradition and seize this worthy superlative from contexts that only diminish it’s worth. Today I hang it on the memory of a man who would have worn it well in life had we the courage to use it in his presence.

Of course we wouldn’t have used it in his presence. His protest would have been quiet but firm, a firmness we all learned to recognize as the tip of an iceberg-sized conviction. Great men don’t need to shout and pile on verbiage to communicate important ideas. Their family and friends know how they think because their convictions are not whimsical but deeply embedded in their character. O yes, the man we affectionately call “Grandpa Fahlgren” could use endless words to describe conversations with his friend Bernie who built houses with him back in the 40’s. But on the more volatile political or theological themes all he needed to say was, “Yah, I just don’t see it that way.” We all knew that “Yah” was an old Swedish word for “I know what you’re saying and I’m not buying it but I don’t want to argue.”

Dad Fahlgren was a man of faith who loved God and walked with him in ways that form legacies in children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. But that faith was seeded with a few knotty conundrums that none of us could unravel to his satisfaction—questions that may have sounded like skepticism to fragile minds. Our youthful “answers” were probably more conducive to agnosticism than faith but he parried them with that same polite Scandinavian, “Yah.”

Some great men are known for great ideas others for great ideals. As his family and close friends continue to speak of him, we will talk in terms of certain moral ideals that leached out in his words, choices, and actions. Words like fairness and honesty will be used generously. Our conversations will be laced with references to his consistent devotion to God and family. He held to a standard of justice that could not countenance some of the policies of presidents he reluctantly voted for. He was an army medic in World War II–a patriot who did not hesitate to hold his country to the same ideals of compassion and equality that defined him. As a husband and father he was irreproachably faithful and loyal.

I have been blessed to be married to a woman raised by this father. I have been enriched by 34 years of conversation and observation with one of the most consistent human beings I know. My children have been richly endowed growing up in the shadow of this kind, gracious, unflappable, even-handed grandpa. His passing may be unnoticed by the media-fed masses but his great ideals have been gradually etched into at least 40 minds and souls of those who call him dad, grandpa, uncle and “O Russ!” If this isn’t greatness, what is?