My father just passed April 1, 2024 6:36 PM. For those reading this, I want to make absolutely clear the world lost a great man named John Edward Vaughan. I am Daniel Cullen. Legally, we share no blood, and legally he'd only be my stepfather, but our bond was beyond mere ties of blood.
I must confess before he entered my life, I had no father. The worthless waste of a human soul who raped my mother is why I'm here, and she chose to not punish me for his unimaginable crime but to raise me as her son, for which my mother will have my undying loyalty. But until she married John "Johnny" Vaughan, I had no one in my life I acknowledged as my father. Even my grandfather, he was still just my grandfather.
She married two other men earlier, both of which amounted to nothing and their departure from her life was one I have no regret over. When she decided to get married a third time, both he and her made a step that was quite unusual at the time but says a lot, more than I realize now.
They asked me if I wanted them to marry. Asked my siblings too, but they put the decision of their union in our hands, and I assented.
It wasn't easy the first couple of years. I had gone into the idea with very different ideas about how we'd get along, and Dad and I fought, often to the point of blows, I am ashamed to say, but we slowly began to realize we were stronger when we quit fighting and united, accepting what we could not change and changing for each other. As we did, one moment that was a turning point I will never forget was the day I confessed my fears of death to my father. The exact conversation, well, I don't remember it word for word, but the gist of it was that death was not something to fear, it would come, but I would understand when it did, and I should not worry about it. I knew it intellectually, and as a Christian, I understood death wasn't the end, but at the time a part of me wondered what the proof would be of his statements, true though I knew it to be on some level.
As he was diagnosed with late-stage kidney failure, unable to walk anymore, confined to a bed, and reduced to absolute dependence on us, he never stopped being a father, never stopped seeing me as his son, and despite my own upset at how his life had been curtailed with the knowledge his death was a certainty at the end (as he was too late for dialysis or kidney transplant to be of any real good), he managed to hold on, far longer than anticipated.
As I saw him grow weaker, saw him suffer more pain, saw his body desiccate and emaciated into a husk of itself, it ripped my heart open. Yet somehow, he seemed to be even more at peace. He had once said if death was inevitable, he did not want to be resuscitated, he would accept it when it happened, and he'd trust God with his soul. As he reached even closer to the end, barely able to be lucid, unable to keep food down, and needed to be sedated more or less constantly just to feel peace, I wept. For all his flaws, for all our disagreements over the years, for all we had never seen eye to eye on, I cried without shame.
My father was dying and would soon be gone.
For those reading this, I wrote this before the end of his life, so if you are reading this now, God has finally reclaimed one of his own. And now I understand why Dad said not to fear death.
And I now know his pain is over. The afflictions of the mortal coil no longer bind him to the flesh that served as his earthly shell. His weakened mortal form no longer would drag down the greatness of his soul. His suffering was over, and he would be in the eternal presence of those who went on before.
I won't try to pretend it won't hurt me to not have him. And I won't pretend death on some level does not still terrify me, but now I understand why it didn't frighten him, and why when it's my own time, I should not be afraid.
With that said, I just want the world to know John Edward Vaughan may not have sired me, but I was his son. We shared no blood, but he meant more than any blood tie. I may have had a million differences with him, and him me, but we loved one another all the same. And while I rejoice his pain is over, the world will be lesser without him, as I'm not the only life who was immeasurably improved by his presence.
He was not a proud man. He enjoyed hunting and fishing. Before losing his ability to walk and move around he was a humble operator of machinery at a paper mill. He had no grand ambitions, no great designs for the world. He was just a man with a family, simply trying to raise them and be a provider to them.
But I honor him more than anyone will ever know. Humble as his ambitions were, he gave me the greatest gift of all, a laurel he will wear proudly into eternity.
He gave me a father.
