Fund for Walter Heath’s Burial and Related Expenses

Update:

Walter Ivan Heath, born on October 17, 1944, passed away from this material world on August 22, 2024. Thank you to all who have extended their prayerful hearts and paid respects to us during this time. We would be eternally grateful for monetary gifts to fund his burial and other related expenses as my mom Bahereh moves forward in this new life chapter. Let’s keep this link private & off social media (As of August 30, we have raised about $2,000; the rest was put toward his medical costs during the past five years.)

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.

—Sienna Mae Heath

.

The live recording of the service where he was buried beneath a patch of Thyme at Fairview Cemetery in Bethlehem, PA can be viewed here: https://www.hdezwebcast.com/show/walter-heath-service

His obituary: https://www.jamesfuneralhome.org/memorials/walter--heath/5476936/

His eulogy: https://siennamaeheath.medium.com/eulogy-for-my-father-walter-ivan-heath-30fa984ff17d?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1aCK7HF5ElcQXF17rY8pvhK40SKe5Y13LDT3JV7PHzj7iPK-eFLpMJLPo_aem_lDSjiwmKVa4MjfZFzSOx0Q

***

Our loving dad, husband, and teacher needs help. Stage 4 Prostate Cancer is not going away, but it can be tamed. All we can do is manage the symptoms and the growth. God takes care of the quantity of years, but we hold the power to give him the quality of life he deserves.

He's making tea bowls, telling stories, and building a fortress at NCC's Center of Clay and Fire. He's living, he's here, he's happy, he's optimistic. Let's keep him that way. If you can spare it, we'd be eternally grateful for your donations toward his treatment. Surviving isn't in 5 years. Surviving is now.