A Rainbow's Arch

On Sunday, February 14, in a simple ceremony, my family interred my father's ashes in the little garden on the grounds of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Jacksonville. Dad and Mother donated the gate to the garden, as well as one of the church's windows. Dad attended St. Mark's for decades, until he and Mother moved to Vicar's Landing, a retirement community in Ponte Vedra Beach. The land on which Dad's father's house stood, and in which Dad had lived for a short time, is now part of St. Mark's campus. Dad also did some of the architectural work at St. Mark's, including designing the rectory.

On the way to St. Mark's, Susan and I drove past the turnoff to Lakeshore Junior High School, which my brother and sister and I attended, and which Dad designed. After the ceremony, we drove two blocks from St. Mark's to pass by Ortega Elementary School, where Dad designed the building additions in which my brother and sister attended their first and second-grade classes, and-- having skipped first grade (a bad decision, by the way)-- I attended second-grade classes. We then drove by the 1939 vintage home on Ortega Boulevard in which my brother and sister and I were raised, and which Dad designed, to a lunch hosted by Mother at Timuquana Country Club; which, as I have noted previously, Dad also designed.

Yesterday, in Ponte Vedra Beach, we held the church service in memory of Dad, and the reception afterwards, at Christ Episcopal Church. Dad attended that church for the many summers that he spent at Ponte Vedra Beach; where, in the mid-nineteen thirties, he designed most of the original houses and, over the ensuing six decades, many others, including the two that he designed for us. Christ Church itself was designed by Wellington Cummer II, a friend and colleague of Dad's, and the father of my roommate at the Hill School; when Mr. Cummer left the practice of architecture to enter his family's business, Dad drafted the architectural plans for Christ Church based on Mr. Cummer's design.

The memorial service was entitled:

                                   

 A CELEBRATION OF THE LIFE OF

Clyde Eugene Harris

April 4, 1910 - January 17, 2010

Because Dad outlived almost all of his contemporaries, it was gratifying that the memorial was very well attended. While the service was traditional and poignant, it was beautifully executed and was indeed a celebration of Dad's life. As my brother pointed out in his remembrance, Dad always greeted each day with optimism.  In late March or early April, 1513, Don Juan Ponce de Leon may have landed on the shore that we now call Ponte Vedra Beach, in search of the Fountain of Youth. Although Ponce de Leon never found it, I believe that Dad did.

Afterwards, at the reception, Mother insisted on standing, for as long as she could, to thank Dad's and her friends for their presence. After the reception, as I walked outside the church into a gentle rain, one of the clergy hurried over to me and pointed upwards: A rainbow's arch spanned the sky.