"Ask your father what to do". That's what Mom said at a family reunion picnic when my cousin Vickie and I came to her with a problem. Eleven-year-old Vickie had come with a suitcase and was told by her father that she could stay with us for a week as long as she found a way home. I made my way through the crowded kitchen and found Dad in the doorway of the living room, talking to Aunt Bea. Dad's heart began to melt as he looked down at my eight-year-old face while I told him about our problem. Aunt Bea stood in the background, smiling, watching the exchange between us as though it was the most precious thing she had ever seen. Dad smiled and said, "Well, I've been thinking that it would be nice to go down to see Aunt Barbara and Uncle Harold anyway. So why don't we do that next week and we can take Vickie home when we go." Vickie and I were ecstatic. It was as if someone had handed each of us a million dollars. It was one of the few times when Dad knew exactly what to say.
Dad married Mom in 1951 when he was only eighteen years old. A year later, my oldest brother, Jos, came along. Welcome to fatherhood! At that time Dad went from being a carefree teenager playing guitar in a band to a young man with a tremendous amount of responsibility. My parents established a traditional household where he was the breadwinner and she was a stay-at-home Mom. Dad provided for our physical needs while Mom tended to the emotional ones. Dad excelled at the genius level in his own lane. He could build anything or fix anything and loved doing it! He worked as a refrigeration mechanic for the Lehigh Dairy, fixing all the problems with their milk trucks. He turned our garage into another house and used the foundation from a barn to build a dance studio. He paid our taxes with a side business selling Christmas trees and taught people to play the guitar and piano for extra money. However, the confidence with which he did those things was somewhat lacking when it came to expressing himself with words. He felt uncomfortable openly expressing his feelings and responding to the feelings of others. I don't think I ever heard him actually say "I love you", but I never doubted for a moment that he did love me, because actions speak louder than words.
After twenty frustrating minutes of circling around in the city of Wilkes Barre, lost, Dad finally figured out how to get home. He and Mom breathed a sigh of relief in the front seat of the car, hoping that they would never have to go back there again. We were coming from a college where I was competing with other high school students for a slot in a summer program for creative writers. I had been interviewed by several people about my writing style and had to submit a short story for them to review. Looking down at the folder I had taken with me, I suddenly saw something that nearly made my heart stop beating. It was an application for the program that I had forgotten to hand in. If they didn't get that document, I could never be considered for a slot in the program. I felt so bad for forgetting to turn it in. I could barely bring myself to say it...."We have to go back." When I told them what happened, Dad didn't yell. He didn't criticize. He didn't complain. He just turned the car around and started heading back to the college, re-entering the confusing maze that he thought he could leave behind. I never got a slot in the creative writing program that year. Instead, I ended up with something even more valuable. I ended up with a permanent memory of my father's willingness to drive through hell and back in order to help me.
The best of relationships are not without conflict and so it was between Dad and me when I reached my late teens. Dad viewed the world through a lens developed by the culture of the forties and fifties, and as a young woman in the eighties and nineties, there was quite a generation gap between us. I vehemently disagreed with some of Dad's opinions, and vice versa. I secretly worried that Dad was disappointed in me, because I did not turn out to be more like him. However, if our fathers really wanted us to be exactly like them, why would they work so hard so we could have a better life than they did?
Dad was always proud to tell others that he had a daughter in college, even though I was majoring in Psychology, and he probably never fully understood what that was. He also didn't fully understand what being a counselor was all about, but he supported my decision to become one because it was what I wanted to do, and he just wanted me to be happy.
Psychology teaches that as we mature, we start viewing our parents in a different way. We eventually realize that they had no super powers to draw from. They were just vulnerable human beings who loved us as best as they could, while struggling with the limitations and scars from their own personal experience. When I reached that point my memories of Dad became even more precious. I valued the memories of his contributions even more - because I realized that making them was not easy. I went from focusing on the things that Dad didn't understand to realizing that I never took the time to completely explain them to him.
It's been more than three decades since my father passed away, but the love between him and I is still alive. I visit his grave before every major holiday and every year on Father's Day. I talk to him out loud, as if he was still physically standing there in front of me, because it feels like he still is. I give him an update every time, on what's been happening in my life, and ask him to pray for me. Somehow, he always seems to find a way to respond. I relate strongly to the words in Dan Fogelberg's song, "My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man, I'm just a living legacy to the leader of the band."
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