My Father

I’ve thought a lot throughout this day about my father, as I often do.   If he had not been my father, I would have chosen him for a friend.   He could, quite literally, do anything, fix anything, and endure about anything including a household of females.   He took a high school education from Ahrens Trade School and carried that into a long career with IBM as computers came into existence and as they went from filling whole rooms to sitting on our desktop.   When he was in high school he became a HAM radio operator.  He told me once that while he was learning the necessary Morris Code to test for his license, he would read billboards as he rode the city bus to school and would tap out what they said on his leg in Morris Code.   As a child I would walk to the end of our street to watch for him to come  home from work.  He would pull up, scoop me up onto his lap and let me “drive” the rest of the way home. 

First and foremost, my father was a committed Christian and his love of his life in the Lord only deepened as he grew older and as he grew more ill near the end.  He was a good provider, and a great teacher, but the greatest legacy he left to me was giving me a faith foundation, a place from which my own faith story would begin.    I am forever in his debt for that.  And although because of his hard work, I always had not only whatever I needed but a lot of what I wanted, the greatest gift he gave me was telling me several times before he died that he thought I was a good parent, that I was raising my children well.  He gave me his blessing, and I am a better person because of it. 

I’d love to have him here, to be able to hug him and see the twinkle in his eye, but I love the thought of his life beyond this one, that which he looked so forward to- a place of no pain or illness and of joyful reunion with his own parents and loved ones.   Happy Fathers Day Dad, today, and really every day.