My Father Revisited
Dec. 9th, 2011 08:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dogriverMy supervisor lost her father recently. Not surprisingly, this got me, yet again, to thinking of my own dad, and what the ten and a half years since his death have meant to me.
When Dad died, he was almost perfect in my mind. All I would think of were the things he did right ... and there's a huge catalog of things to choose from in that regard. This larger-than-life status for Dad lasted many years ... Dad was that kind of a man, and the 900+ people who attended his funeral will attest to this.
In the last couple of years, though, my thoughts have shifted a little. I'm starting to see, more and more, some of the mistakes Dad made, some of the times he let me down, hurt me, falsely accused me of untruthfulness, and so on. And those things happened. Dad was, after all, a human being.
At first, I felt guilty for remembering the bad with the good. Did this mean that I somehow loved him less than I thought I did? Should I not only concentrate on the good things and forget about the bad?
There's one snag in this way of thinking, though: I'm a human being too. The negative things did happen. My coming to realize this in no way diminishes the great love and respect I have for my dad and his memory, it's just balancing things out a little.
This realization comes as a great relief to me on several levels. First, as I said, I am relieved to know that acknowledging the negative doesn't make me a bad, unloving son. Also, it means that, in aspiring to be the man of kindness, integrity and faith in God that my dad was, I don't have to aim for an unattainable perfection. I'll still never be all that he was, but at least the goal is more realistic now than it was when my role model seemingly did no wrong.
My father was a wonderful human being. He earned my love an infinite number of times over. But he was human, just as I am. And I think that, were he to read what I have just written, he would have been the first to agree. I never knew him to pretend to be, or to consider himself, more than who and what he was. He was as humble as I was (and possibly still am) arrogant. If he'd seen the larger-than-life picture I painted of him in my mind's eye after he died, he would have lectured me sternly on the subject.
I want to end this babbling with a story I've often told, but I'm not sure if I ever wrote it down here. If I did, I apologize. But it illustrates, to me, how God's love works, and how Dad used example to teach me.
When I was growing up on the farm, one of the things we kids used to do was to play in the box of the grain truck during the combining season. We were allowed to do this, but we were told sternly that, when the combine was dumping grain into the truck, we were to move to the other end, away from the incoming grain. There were no exceptions, no allowances, this rule must be followed for our own safety.
One day I decided it would be cool to get myself buried in the grain, so when the combine dumped the grain into the truck, I was there, getting dumped on. The combine driver couldn't see me, and so didn't know that I had gotten myself buried up to my chin. A little more and I could have suffocated. This was nobody's fault but mine, not even remotely.
After the combine left, my uncles saw the predicament I was in. I couldn't get myself out of the grain, and it was obvious what I had done. They dug me out, they sent me home, and from then on, no kids were allowed to play in the back of the truck. I had wrecked it for everyone else, I had almost gotten myself killed, I had made a fool of myself.
My dad wasn't among those present, but I knew he'd be told immediately.
I spent the next few hours waiting for Dad to come home, preparing for whatever punishment I was about to receive. I knew I deserved to be punished, I had no intention of trying to avoid it. I knew fully what I had done, what the near consequences of my actions had been, the danger in which I had put myself, the trust I had violated ... I knew all that, and there was absolutely no denying that I deserved a very severe punishment.
So Dad came home. I was reading a book when he did. I waited for him to sit down in the TV room and turn on the hockey game, then I submitted myself for punishment. I walked up to dad and said hi.
Dad said hi back.
I waited.
Dad watched the hockey game.
Finally, I burst out, "Don't you want to talk to me about something?"
"Nothing in particular," Dad said mildly. I think Dad even read to me that evening, as if nothing had happened.
I didn't' get it. Surely Dad knew. They wouldn't let this misdeed go unreported, they were responsible people and would know that Dad needed to know ... if my uncles had somehow not told him, my mom surely would have.
But there was nothing more to do. Clearly Dad had no intention of punishing me. I didn't get it.
But the lesson Dad taught to me that Saturday will stick with me for the rest of my life. Dad didn't punish for the sake of punishment. He punished me because he wanted me to understand that what I had done was inappropriate. In this case, he knew I understood, he knew I had learned my lesson, and he knew that a non-punishment would teach me a lot more than a punishment would have.
That's the kind of dad I'm so thankful I had.
When Dad died, he was almost perfect in my mind. All I would think of were the things he did right ... and there's a huge catalog of things to choose from in that regard. This larger-than-life status for Dad lasted many years ... Dad was that kind of a man, and the 900+ people who attended his funeral will attest to this.
In the last couple of years, though, my thoughts have shifted a little. I'm starting to see, more and more, some of the mistakes Dad made, some of the times he let me down, hurt me, falsely accused me of untruthfulness, and so on. And those things happened. Dad was, after all, a human being.
At first, I felt guilty for remembering the bad with the good. Did this mean that I somehow loved him less than I thought I did? Should I not only concentrate on the good things and forget about the bad?
There's one snag in this way of thinking, though: I'm a human being too. The negative things did happen. My coming to realize this in no way diminishes the great love and respect I have for my dad and his memory, it's just balancing things out a little.
This realization comes as a great relief to me on several levels. First, as I said, I am relieved to know that acknowledging the negative doesn't make me a bad, unloving son. Also, it means that, in aspiring to be the man of kindness, integrity and faith in God that my dad was, I don't have to aim for an unattainable perfection. I'll still never be all that he was, but at least the goal is more realistic now than it was when my role model seemingly did no wrong.
My father was a wonderful human being. He earned my love an infinite number of times over. But he was human, just as I am. And I think that, were he to read what I have just written, he would have been the first to agree. I never knew him to pretend to be, or to consider himself, more than who and what he was. He was as humble as I was (and possibly still am) arrogant. If he'd seen the larger-than-life picture I painted of him in my mind's eye after he died, he would have lectured me sternly on the subject.
I want to end this babbling with a story I've often told, but I'm not sure if I ever wrote it down here. If I did, I apologize. But it illustrates, to me, how God's love works, and how Dad used example to teach me.
When I was growing up on the farm, one of the things we kids used to do was to play in the box of the grain truck during the combining season. We were allowed to do this, but we were told sternly that, when the combine was dumping grain into the truck, we were to move to the other end, away from the incoming grain. There were no exceptions, no allowances, this rule must be followed for our own safety.
One day I decided it would be cool to get myself buried in the grain, so when the combine dumped the grain into the truck, I was there, getting dumped on. The combine driver couldn't see me, and so didn't know that I had gotten myself buried up to my chin. A little more and I could have suffocated. This was nobody's fault but mine, not even remotely.
After the combine left, my uncles saw the predicament I was in. I couldn't get myself out of the grain, and it was obvious what I had done. They dug me out, they sent me home, and from then on, no kids were allowed to play in the back of the truck. I had wrecked it for everyone else, I had almost gotten myself killed, I had made a fool of myself.
My dad wasn't among those present, but I knew he'd be told immediately.
I spent the next few hours waiting for Dad to come home, preparing for whatever punishment I was about to receive. I knew I deserved to be punished, I had no intention of trying to avoid it. I knew fully what I had done, what the near consequences of my actions had been, the danger in which I had put myself, the trust I had violated ... I knew all that, and there was absolutely no denying that I deserved a very severe punishment.
So Dad came home. I was reading a book when he did. I waited for him to sit down in the TV room and turn on the hockey game, then I submitted myself for punishment. I walked up to dad and said hi.
Dad said hi back.
I waited.
Dad watched the hockey game.
Finally, I burst out, "Don't you want to talk to me about something?"
"Nothing in particular," Dad said mildly. I think Dad even read to me that evening, as if nothing had happened.
I didn't' get it. Surely Dad knew. They wouldn't let this misdeed go unreported, they were responsible people and would know that Dad needed to know ... if my uncles had somehow not told him, my mom surely would have.
But there was nothing more to do. Clearly Dad had no intention of punishing me. I didn't get it.
But the lesson Dad taught to me that Saturday will stick with me for the rest of my life. Dad didn't punish for the sake of punishment. He punished me because he wanted me to understand that what I had done was inappropriate. In this case, he knew I understood, he knew I had learned my lesson, and he knew that a non-punishment would teach me a lot more than a punishment would have.
That's the kind of dad I'm so thankful I had.
