Rest in Peace Karl Love (Reflections on Alacrity)

My father, Karl Love, passed away just before midnight on March 16. I was not there. I received the call from the hospice team and stayed up rest of the night. In the morning, still dark, I took Elmer the husky for a walk and realized it was my first walk of my life where my father was not alive.

It was an honor to take care of him these past 4 ½ years, but now a new chapter begins and I really have no idea what direction my life will take. All will unfold.

I could write a book about my father, and perhaps another one about our relationship. I want to share one brief anecdote about us from my youth. My parents were separated but Dad would come over once or twice a month to our home in Oregon City, in the spring, to help me with the yard work, which was considerable because the house sat on a half acre of lawn to mow and many deciduous trees that dropped thousands of leaves. I was ten or eleven at the time, and Dad would always teach me vocabulary when we were raking or weeding side by side. Tex the beagle was always out there with us.

One vocabulary word stands out—alacrity—anoun meaning doing something with speed and eagerness. He defined it for me, used it in a sentence related to yard work, and then modeled how to perform yard work with alacrity.

That word has stayed with me all my life. I try to perform every task, writing, publishing, home maintenance, legal affairs, communicating in personal relationships, and many others, with alacrity. The opposite is procrastination, indifference and flaking.

Alacrity does not mean doing something so hurried that the task ends up being rushed and slipshod. It means doing something with dispatch, efficiency and feeling damn good about it.

I will see to the disposal of his estate with alacrity, as he would have wanted.

I taught the word to my students and I wonder if any of them remember it.

Dad is pictured here as a 20-year-old Marine serving in the Korean War. He told me he was always standing out during his tour for the alacrity of carrying out orders, some of them dangerous or unpleasant or totally menial.

As I begin this new stage, I will continue to perform with alacrity in all things.

Rest in peace Dad. No need for alacrity where you are or what you are anymore.