Eulogy for My Father, Walter Ivan Heath
Yesterday, my dad did everything right. Greeted by a curiously configured chorus of birds serenading him outside his window, he was freed from his earthly cage. He waited to make the moment easier for my mom Bahereh Khodadoost and me until his favorite nurse aide arrived at his bedside. Exactly how he wanted, he chose to be with us near, at his home, surrendered to the birds, and, thanks to loving friends, got his wish in his last hours to have a burial arranged at a local cemetery with fellow members of the Baha’i Faith rather than at a far-away military plot. He is now liberated from this material realm to the Abhá Kingdom of Heaven.
Being of the Baha’i Faith, my father Walter Ivan Heath believed in “death as a messenger of joy,” a concept foreign to me until recently when, in his last few months, he smiled as he imagined a mystical place (a pristine island of sorts) where everyone and everything was good. On Tuesday, he admitted he was nearing the end. His cool blue eyes watered as he lay on his back in bed. He was a boy again. And I had become the mother. So I held his shoulders and said, “Dad, you get to go! You get to go to that place you’re making and make it however you want to!” He laughed gently, with relief.
My dad’s 79-year-life began, like all of ours, at birth, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was a son of pilots, the late Winifred R. and Lucy Eleanor (Bishop) Heath. As a boy, Walter soared like a bird in airplanes with his father and played quite fearlessly with his brothers Raymond and Roger. Captivated by the sky, my dad also took a keen and lifelong interest in UFOs (one of the last topics brought back to his attention the morning before he passed away).
Walter was sometimes anxious in temperament though that didn’t stop him from exploring the world and creating a legacy in his adulthood. To start, he served in the U.S. Air Force, later graduated from the University of Tulsa with a Bachelor’s degree, and continued to Pittsburg State University in Kansas where he earned an MS degree meanwhile having his first daughter, my half-sister Heather.
Breathing life into his microcosm of our world, he worked in various hospitals as a respiratory therapist. Next, he came into a career as an artist and educator before retiring.
A pure soul, Walter set his sights on God by becoming a maker of clay art including Japanese-style teapots, tea bowls adorned with the texture of Indian corn from which we drank herbal teas grown in our gardens, and Hadgini drums for Paul Simon’s percussionist. All the while, he was deeply valued by his students, one of whom, Tony Williams, called him “dad.” His education career ranged from developing an art program for children with autism at the Colonial I.U. 20 to inspiring college students in ceramics classes.
Outside of work (sometimes during), every time my dad stirred up trouble by climbing on a ladder he was deemed too frail to climb or embarking on a sacred burn of a garden plot, his inner child felt a fool’s joy.
Through his purity, however dimmed by the challenges of this material reality, he showed me how to ride waves of sorrow and joy. He met me at the low points and lifted me in those waters with humor. In the end, he guided me to do the same. As his breath slowed, I gathered a bouquet of thyme in the garden and one echinacea bloom from a cluster of three (leaving two). I placed it in his hand, still warm, and said: “Dad, this is your thyme.”
No one laughed.
Except him, in spirit.
.
My mom and I planted thyme on Dad’s grave after the service and lunch with loved ones.
The Service
Celebration of Walter Ivan Heath
(October 17, 1944 – August 22, 2024)
Eternally grateful for the friends and family who attended the service at Fairview Cemetery in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on August 24, 2024 and have shown love and respect for my mom Bahereh Khodadoost and me online, in person, and in spirit.
“A Little Song of Life”
by Lizette Woodworth Reese
Glad that I live am I;
That the sky is blue;
Glad for the country lanes,
And the fall of dew.
After the sun the rain;
After the rain the sun;
This is the way of life,
Till the work be done.
All that we need to do,
Be we low or high,
Is to see that we grow
Nearer the sky.
Baha’i chant/song:
We all come from God and unto him do we return
Like a stream flowing back to the ocean
Like a ray of light returning to the sun
We all come from God and unto him do we return.
(Led by Bridget George)
Baha’i Prayer for The Dead (The Departed)
Read by Laura Lawrence
O my God! This is Thy servant and the son of Thy servant who hath believed in Thee and in Thy signs, and set his face towards Thee, wholly detached from all except Thee. Thou art, verily, of those who show mercy the most merciful.
Deal with him, O Thou Who forgivest the sins of men and concealest their faults, as beseemeth the heaven of Thy bounty and the ocean of Thy grace. Grant him admission within the precincts of Thy transcendent mercy that was before the foundation of earth and heaven. There is no God but Thee, the Ever-Forgiving, the Most Generous.
Let him, then, repeat six times the greeting “Alláh-u-Abhá,” and then repeat nineteen times each of the following verses:
We all, verily, worship God.
We all, verily, bow down before God.
We all, verily, are devoted unto God.
We all, verily, give praise unto God.
We all, verily, yield thanks unto God.
We all, verily, are patient in God.
Bahá’u’lláh
.
The live recording of the service can be viewed here: https://www.hdezwebcast.com/show/walter-heath-service
His obituary: https://www.jamesfuneralhome.org/memorials/walter--heath/5476936/
Eulogy by my sister Heather: https://www.facebook.com/share/SXyyHvJgwUeDchMR/?
My Father’s Death: “A Messenger of Joy”
Read next and explore more photos of his clay art: https://siennamaeheath.medium.com/my-fathers-death-a-messenger-of-joy-4ba96ee01c69
