Leonard, The Character

Sunday, September 9, 2007
LEONARD, THE CHARACTER

My dad was one of God's true characters, as you can see from the poem I wrote for him on his 80th birthday. It said the following:"You're our Al Jolson in the movies we have of you.You're our Jimmy Durante, all our noses are yours, too.You're our Will Rogers in the wise things that you say.You're our Red Skelton, you still make us laugh today.You're our George Burns in the stories that you tell.You're our Howard Hughes, in business you did so well.You're really Leonard Wieland, our father and our friend,Someone we can count on from beginning to the end.You're our Rock of Gibraltar, our foundation strong and true.You're truly our hero. Daddy we all love you."
My dad began to lose some of his sharp mind and clever wit as his years increased. In fact, in his early 90s he thought he had won the Publisher Clearing House millions. It took a lot of talking to convince him of his folly, but he had already made a fool of himself to his friends in Texas. It was several years after that embarrassing situation before we could joke with him about the incident since the ridicule he received from his friends because of his gullibility was too painful for him to discuss. However, after a few years passed, we had many laughs with him about the truth of the saying, "There's no fool like an old fool." Daddy died in Texas in 2006. The night that he died at age 95 my sister called to tell us that he had died peacefully with only a gasp and then he was gone. We were pleased to hear the news about his peaceful departure because that is the exit for which we had all fervently prayed. We wanted him to leave his earth with as little pain as possible as he entered heaven to be with Mother. We grieved a lot that evening, but we also laughed a lot because he left us a plethora of hilarious stories. We knew he would want us to laugh, because that was our family custom. I woke at 4:00 a.m. the next morning, couldn't go back to sleep, so I decided to get on the computer and send emails to my friends telling them that our prayers for a peaceful departure for Daddy had been answered.As I was typing the letter on the computer, I suddenly saw a pop-up on the computer screen, which was impossible since we had multiple pop-up and spam blockers. The pop-up informed me that I had won five million dollars in the Publisher Clearing House Contest. I immediately knew that it was my Daddy's parting message to me and that he wanted to leave us with a laugh, as was his habit in life. Wow, I never knew my Daddy had that kind of influence in heaven! I really, really admire him now.Bob Hope always signed off his programs singing, "Thanks for the memories," which Daddy always loved. So I'll ditto Bob Hope's words of gratitude by saying, "Thanks for the memories, Daddy.You definitely got the last laugh!"

Daddy, June 2007