R is for Rendezvous

This is literally  the eleventh hour of the day where I sit, but I will squeeze out a blog post.  I was going to cop out and say "R is for Respite, which is what I am choosing to take today from the A to Z Challenge."   Too cheesy, huh?  I thought so.

Instead of quoting from my dad's journal, I just wanted to share one word that always, always, always makes me think of Daddy.

That word is rendezvous.

Daddy doesn't "meet up" with people.  No, he has to rendezvous.
Some folks say, "Okay, let's get together at five-thirty at such-and-such a place."
Not him.  He queries, "Shall we rendezvous at half past five?"

I teased him once that I was going to name a daughter Rhonda Voo.

If you have read my blog for any length of time, you know that I love French words.  I took French in high school and  college; I just love the language.  I think Daddy had something to do with it, because I remember asking him when I was very young, "What does rondeevoo mean, anyway?"

Daddy usually answers a  question with a question.  The quintessential socratic teacher. Often he just repeats your question back. "What does rendezvous mean?"

I remembered the definition he gave me as a little girl holding his hand:  "Rendezvous means to meet at a given time and place. It's a French word."  I  didn't know what "a given time" meant or that French was a foreign language. I just knew I liked learning grown-up words that Daddy used when most people used ordinary, child-size words around me.

I'm tempted to tell Daddy that, at his funeral, we might tweak the words to an old hymn just for him.

Shall we rendezvous at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river? 
Rendezvous with the saints at the river that flows from the heart of God. 

I think he would chuckle on the way to that beautiful river.