The Queen, The Pope and Dad
By Robin Richmond Mason
In 2022, the world became a darker place. Three extraordinarily bright lights were dimmed. The world knows of the passing of Queen Elizabeth and we have most recently sighed at the passing of Pope Benedict. Only the world of Appalachia knows of the passing of my dad, Freddie Richmond.
No daughter ever loved her daddy more than I loved my dad. No Dad ever loved his kids, grandkids and huge family more than Freddie Richmond.Carl Sandburg said that “A tree is best measured when it is down.” You and I affirm that only God can make a tree.
Freddie Richmond was a giant tree of a man, that God planted and tended. I and thousands, maybe millions, have found shade and love underneath Dad’s influence. Join me in thinking about the fact that trees are harbingers of God. A tree is on the first page of the Bible as well as the last page of the Bible and almost every page in between. Every important character and every major event, in scripture, has a tree marking the spot. Trees have their feet firmly planted on earth and they are ever vertically reaching for heaven.
In Psalms 92:12-14 we read God’s analogy of great men to trees.“The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green.”
Dad was certainly full of sap and green and ever reaching from earth to heaven. Have you ever thought that trees are the oldest living things on Earth? Trees grow older, taller, and bigger than anything else on earth. God uses their enduring antiquity to remind us of our brevity. We may never be more like God than when we plant a tree.
It is no accident that Dad died in the same calendar year as Queen Elizabeth. Do you know that the Queen asked for people to express their remembrance of her, by planting trees? Go online and look up “The Queen’s Green Canopy (QGC). Dad mentioned the queen’s leadership and global service to me several times. In many ways Dad was royal. He was a world class visionary and an extraordinary servant leader. Everything that was virtuous and noble about the queen resonated with Dad. Few people know that as a young man, Dad was told that he was capable of being the President of the United States, by a close friend. Dad lived for decades, with the hope that he would not reconnect with that friend. Dad felt that his real-life accomplishments fell so short of that lofty prognosis.
Dad was a world class leader with a royal heart. At his funeral, his grandson Alan sang one of Dad’s favorite songs, “A Heart of God”. He would laugh as I call him The King of Beaverdale and quote Micah 6:8.
“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
Our family placed a giant Christmas Tree covered in forest creatures at the foot of Dad’s coffin. I could almost hear Dad laughing at the funeral service and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. My father was a real-life Santa Claus, in Southern Appalachia. I think that God was giving a special smile when he promoted Dad when December 25, 2022 fell on a Sunday. Dad was a special gift under the tree, “a man after God’s own heart”.
Freddie Richmond lived a lifetime of demonstrating the spiritual gift of giving. It is probably best that Mom managed their finances closely during their last years or else Dad would have donated, supported, and given away every last cent. If Santa mystifies giving from a bottomless bag. Freddie Richmond personified giving from a bottomless soul. Dad sponsored church van ministries, mission trips, youth camp participations, building programs, ball teams, revivals and every other legitimate cause that he ever met. Once when I was driving him to a Hackney family reunion, we came to a traffic stop where members of the Lion’s Club were soliciting donations. This family reunion coincided with an especially sparse financial chapter in Dad’s life. Even during his most economically challenging moment, he could not resist giving. As we neared the light, I reached for my purse while reading his mind. He said “We need to give them something. They help blind people.”It was almost impossible for Dad to know of a need without becoming personally involved. Genesis 2:8“out of the ground the lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food”
The last symbol that I will use for Dad, is more sobering, private struggle. Dad had doubts. The combination of a superior intellect and a scientific culture in transition towards a Post Christian world view, caught Dad, the brilliant, young Appalachian in a state of disequilibrium.
By the time that he was generating patents, working with global business partners and transforming the textile industry, it could be soundly observed that the gospel was central to his very being. He was the most authentic Christian that I have ever known but as a young man, his critical mind pondered deep questions that the accessible theology did not answer.
-How was the world created?
-Where did life come from?
-What happens after we die?
-Does one life form evolve into another?
-Why is there war?
-Why do good people suffer?
-What is the meaning of life?
-Is Christianity real?
-What is truth?
-Dad’s honest struggle reminds us of the Apostle Paul praying, “Lord I believe, help though my unbelief”.
The image that Satan used to pound the questions about creation and evolution into this young engineering mind was the Sinclair Oil Dinosaur logo. Dad first saw the oil sign at Uncle Arthur’s car shop. Dad said that the image haunted him. In that moment of history, the theory of evolution was running wild in scientific conversations and literature. The American culture seemed to race away from the rock-solid precepts of Christianity which became compartmentalized as based on faith versus the new, scientific, enlightened discovery of evolution. It is no coincident that Dad died in the same year as the God seeking scholar, Pope Benedict.
Dad’s analytical mind demanded answers and facts. He thought deeply and sought real answers. In my mind, I see him reading the Bible alongside scientific journals. He prayed and labored to really find Truth. As the issue of evolution versus creation was settled firmly in favor of Intelligent Design, I see him planting a tree and silencing the dinosaur.
Even in his passing, Dad would urge us all to embrace our doubts and take them to scripture. “Search out your faith with fear and trembling” while remembering that the Bible invites us, “come let us reason together”. Dad would remind us to search out the foundations of our faith and in the end, find that the Bible is utterly defensible. Doubt your doubts, there is no basis for doubting the Bible.At the funeral, a great grandson named Henry read, 2 Tim 1:12 “For I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him ‘until that day.”
Mike, my brother, worked shoulder to shoulder with Dad for decades. He has called Dad, “The protector of all things great and small.” Mike shared a story that Dad told him from his childhood. Dad was invited to a friend’s farm and found himself running into the barn along with the other boys. There, hanging from the rafters and on the walls, was a vast collection of animal traps. Dad looked at those traps and vividly imagined the animals with their legs caught, hungry, in pain and terrified. Dad told Mike that he began to cry as he stood in the barn looking at the traps.
In honor of this golden hearted, mighty tree of a man, we distributed Kentucky Coffee Tree Seeds at the funeral. The seeds of this endangered, endogenous Appalachian tree invited the attendees to take action. Dad believed in stewarding creation and giving to our wonderful agricultural world. I have no idea how many trees Dad planted in his life but I know that he would be happy that we are planting in honor of his life and testimony.Romans 8:38,39.
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, not height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Elizabeth Barret Browning said, “Earth is filled with heaven and every common bush ablaze with God but only those who see it, take off their shoes.”At the funeral, Dad was bare footed and there was a treasure map on the bottom of his left foot. One week before Dad’s death Lori, my sisterand I were visiting in Dad’s hospital room.
Dad apologized for being so much trouble to everyone. Lori and I replied in unison, convincing Dad that caring for him was no trouble but a privilege. And then we set about with the tickle torture, that he had used on all of his kids and grandkids. The torture consisted of drawing a detailed treasure map on the bottom of the feet. Lori and I made sure the map wascomprehensive and intensely ticklish for Dad.
On Sunday, Christmas Day, The King of Beaverdale,A Real Santa Claus, a scientific thinker who put the Sinclair Dinosaur to rest, and the best Dad that anyone could have, followed that treasure map and found himself in heaven.
