Desi and I have been married for about 15 years. I met Dad a couple years before that. As most boyfriends did I avoided contact with the parents. With Dad being a minister, I didn't know what to expect from him, but he was laid back and had a quiet approach to things.

When Desi and I decided to get married her parents had moved to Muscoda leaving her in Beloit. As we made our wedding plans and many visits to Muscoda I got to know my future in-laws a little better. Josh was just in grade school and I enjoyed teaming up with him and teasing Desi. Cindy was married. And her, her husband - Dan, Desi and I were starting our careers and lives out and we shared those beginning struggles together. Phil was in the Navy so I hadn't gotten to know him yet (though I did meet him at Desi's cousin's Jess' party one night and it did give me second thoughts on joining the family). Desi's family were quiet dedicated faithful people. They were very easy to get along with.

In fact, they didn't even blink an eye we said we wanted to get married on Halloween. Since Dad was marrying us in his church, he also playing the role of our counselor in our before marriage counseling sessions. It was a little weird going through counseling with your future father-in-law (all three of us glossed over the chapter regarding sex). I guess I must have given the right answers because he did married us on Halloween 1987.

The transition from boyfriend to son-in-law went smooth. Our family visits were quiet weekends in the country - a much slower pace then in a Chicago suburb. I occasionally would help Dad with things at his two churches. And as we rode through the hills over the Wisconsin River I realized how much he much truly enjoyed living in the country and its scenery. I also saw how dedicated he was to his family and his work; reaching a easy balance between the two. I saw Dad's love for the family dog in how he cared for Dobie (and later Tramp and Trek).

Some time after Phil came home from the Navy, Dad had gotten a canoe to go fishing on the Wisconsin River. Enjoying fishing myself, I went a couple times but I was never too sure about fishing in canoe on a river. Typical Dad, he was always one to make room in the boat. So the canoe interest turned into a boat purchase- The Sweet Sixteen. It worked out well when he took a calling to Zion Lutheran Church in Neshkoro. Now our weekend visits included fishing trips to explore some of the local lakes and rivers.

One Memorial Day weekend, Phil and Josh invited me up camping and fishing with them, along with Dad's boat. It's a tradition we still hold every year. But the first year Dad would fake apprehension of letting the boat out of his sight and pratically hugged it when we got back. Every year we went he would praise its safe return. The truth was he knew Phil and Josh took great care of it and out of fun, he would be sure they always knew it was his boat.

By this time I was starting to run into some trouble with Dad. I obviously was doing more with the family and that took more planning. I would occasionally have to call the house on my own to talk to Phil or Josh. For a while I would try to catch Desi calling Mom and then ask her to get Phil or Josh on the line. See, the problem was I didn't know how to address Dad. For some reason it was easy to call Mom "Mom". But "Dad" just didn't flow very readily for me. Had I actually asked him, I would have found out he didn't mind me calling him Dad. But I had had a few awkward pauses on the calls I did make. I couldn't call him Gerald or Jerry - only Mom called him that. "Pastor" or "Reverend" seemed too formal and "Mr. Dament" would disrespectful of his position in the church.

When I talked about him, I always referred to him as "Desi's Dad" or "your dad" when talking to one of the kids. I was stuck. I asked Dan how he was handling this problem and he was doing the same thing I was - avoiding it. It wasn't that I couldn't talk to him. In fact, at this point in our relationship we could talk for 15-20 minutes with no problem. There was just that awkward beginning the conversation.

One day, when I had to talk to Phil I called the house and Dad answered it. I paused for a second and then leapt, "Hi Dad, its John." Without skipping a beat, Dad replied with "Hi John, how are things?" I've called him Dad ever since.

From there things got easier. And when Dad got a computer, I became his helpdesk and would answer questions and problems he was having with it. In fact, our time on the phone went from 15-20 minutes to sometimes 1 to 2 hours. I always suspected he got in a little trouble with Mom when the phone bill came and the call had been on his dime. While the computer was doing something we filled in the time with idle conversation. Dad was very easy to talk to.

The last few years I would spend a great deal of our weekend visits in his office as I upgraded computer hardware or software and we talked. It was anything from the weather to the Packers to local issues to international events. On our family vacations up North, we would spend evenings playing our cribbage matches and we talked. Usually on how he was beating me that particular game or how the daily fishing had gone or what the remaining days of vacation held. We talked about how he grew up in Canada and the good times he had on the summers they spent up there. We talked about the church and what should and shouldn't be done. About the grandchildren and how they were growing up too fast and marveled at everything they did. We talked about Cindy and Dan and Nick and Justin. We talked about Mom and Phil, and Josh and Amy and Garret, and about Desi and Nate, Noah and Naomi. We talked about the house and the addition and retirement.

When we were at the house and I was working on the computer, sometimes we would talk until early in the morning. Then the computer would finish what it was doing and I would say "it's done" or if it wasn't fixed "I'll try some more in the morning" to which Dad would reply "We'll figure it out." I would say "Good Night" and he would reply with "See you in the morning" Come morning, we always did figure it out.

As Desi and I drove up for Dad's funeral, Desi said she was going will miss her conversations with Dad and I agreed. Though that started me thinking; I think Dad had it figured out. He knew how to get close to people; you shared yourself with them. Not your material possessions, or your money but your time. He knew God existed between two people when they shared themselves; their thoughts, their dreams, their ideas. He shared a lot of himself with me and I saw him do it with many others.

Little did I know in my transition from Desi's boyfriend to his son-in-law I completely missed the fact that Dad had gone from being a father-in-law to being a friend.

Good bye Dad, Rest in peace - goodnight

John Zilligen

Last updated July 20, 2005