Michael Lynn Wharton

That’s how these things always go, right? Formal. Stale. Just the facts. I think I’d rather just tell you about my Dad.

We were at a Boy Scout camp when I was in probably junior high. We were out in the middle of nowhere beneath a wide-open star-filled Texas sky. Dad was, as he did just about every campout we went on, talking about outer space. As a lifelong physicist, engineer, teacher, science nut, and science fiction fan, this man was in his element, talking knowledgeably about the wonders of the universe before a rapt audience of kids asking the sort of weirdly insightful questions kids that age sometimes ask.

Dad was talking about shooting stars. In the midst of this discussion – as if on command – the most dazzling shooting star I’ve ever seen arced right over the top of us. There was a long pause of stunned silence before Dad said, in a perfect deadpan, “You would not believe how much paperwork I had to fill out for that.”

I love this story because it’s a beautiful little snapshot of so many of the things Dad was, all at once.

He was a Man of Science and a Man of Faith, and he spent much of his adulthood trying to balance and understand and explain how those two sometimes seemingly intractable qualities could coexist. I think it’s because Dad never lost his curiosity or his sense of wonder, of awe, at the spectacle of the universe. It entranced him, and he wanted to understand how it worked, and, through the lens of his faith, why it was here at all.

That drive to understand also led directly to another of the things that made the man who he was. Dad was a Teacher. Over the course of his long career, he taught science at both the high school and college levels, including a gig teaching astronomy and physics at TCU for several decades and teaching Sunday school at Fielder pretty much until the disease finally made that impossible. Dad loved to teach, it was genuinely his calling, and he did it every minute that he could during his time here, from formal classroom settings to long late-night discussions with his kids as we grew older and began to throw the Big Questions at him. He was ready – he’d been waiting.

Dad was funny. He wasn’t always as funny as he thought he was, but that, in itself, was funny. Dad loved to talk and loved to make people laugh, and very often those two both overlapped. He loved puns, especially science puns, and the worse, the better. He loved weird stories and constantly retold anecdotes and silly little observations and goofy songs like the ones his dad passed down to him. He loved people, and he loved connecting with them, and those connections almost always left them smiling. For a man so often focused on the immensity of the cosmos, Dad never lost sight of the importance of the small, and how seemingly insignificant interactions can change someone’s day for the better.

Dad was a Storyteller. He read to my sister and me constantly when we were young, walking us through fairy tales and fables and far-off wondrous adventures. He played the guitar for us often, and he had a particular penchant for “storytelling songs” like “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot (another campfire favorite dad would perform at Boy Scout campouts). As I grew older, I encountered Dad’s love for tabletop role-playing games. He and Mom and their friends would play on Friday nights when I was young, and my memories of watching those games are some of my most cherished of childhood. I remember sitting and being completely entranced by this shared story being spun by my parents and their friends in a way that felt so compelling and unpredictable and powerful. To this day, I credit these games as being the spark that lit the fuse that led to my becoming a writer. It’s a tradition I carry on with my friends today, playing in a game that is a narrative continuation of the story Dad and his friends began all those decades ago.

Like all of us, Dad was a lot of things. But the thing I become more and more amazed by as I get older is just how specific people are. Each of us is a painting where every brushstroke and shade is made up of the past, of paths taken or not, of relationships that flourished or didn’t, of risks gambled or avoided. To borrow a Watchmen quote, “To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold.”

That’s a fancy way of saying, Dad was one of a kind. He was a good man in a world of far too few of them. A Teacher in a world that desperately needed more of the same curiosity that drove him. A Storyteller in a world where sometimes a good story can make all the difference.

And he was my Dad. But that story belongs to me. If you knew him, I’m delighted you’ll carry your own stories of the man that are just for you. He wouldn’t have had it any other way.

In the end, Dad exited in typical Dad fashion. He passed away the same week the Leonid meteor shower was set to begin. As he departed this existence, the sky itself would light up to send him on his way. And you would not believe how much paperwork he had to fill out for that.

Mike is survived by his son, David Wharton, 44; his daughter, Tiffany Richardson, 41; and a host of grandkids and extended family who loved him dearly. So long, old man.

A visitation for Michael will be held Saturday, November 26, 2022 from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM at Moore Funeral Home, 1219 North Davis Drive, Arlington, TX 76012. A funeral service will occur Saturday, November 26, 2022 at 1:00 PM, 1219 North Davis Drive, Arlington, TX 76012. A committal service will occur Saturday, November 26, 2022 at 2:00 PM at Moore Memorial Gardens, 1219 North Davis Drive, Arlington, TX 76012.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.moore-funeralhome.com for the Wharton family.