I am glad to say that I am not among the group of men and women who still suffer from the trauma of never hearing, "I love you," from my father and mother. Both of my parents have always been loving in word and action. Amidst the many that wanted affirmation or acknowledgement from a parent and never received a hint of it, I stand not in that company. I know the pain is intense and widespread as over many years of listening to individuals sitting with me, tears staining their cheeks, recounted the bruises left by silence or worse, violent arrows shot at their hearts, paralyzing their own ability to love others fully. I have always known my parents love me, but as Father's Day approaches I think of those things my father never told me.
Dad taught me many things in life. How to hunt, fish, and tie a necktie. He showed me how to shine my shoes and check the oil in the car. He told me of words and actions that were right and wrong. As I grew older he told me stories of his own life's poor decisions and misdirections mixed with the humor that only time can make stories upon which one will say, "someday we'll look back on this with a laugh."
Riding in my Dad's pickup we talked. I still have the vivid memory of sitting with Dad in his boat on White River Lake talking while we fished on the day before my first experience with kindergarten. The time he talked to me about sex, I'm not sure which one of us was more uncomfortable. When he would come into my bedroom I knew that times I was in for a stern, "talking to." Many times my attitude and replies were insolent and obviously infuriating. I was born with a hard head and suspect I'll die with one as well.
I learned many things from Dad's words, but I learned at least as much from the things my father never told me.
My father never told me how to work hard, she showed me. He was a brick mason by trade. A work that was physically demanding. Laying brick and stone, using mortar and a trowel as the tool of his art, layering row upon row on so many buildings in and around the town where I grew up. He did it very well and without his labor in blazing heat and blustery cold wind the beauty of many a building would be not be both beautiful and a testament to his true mastery of art. I remember seeing a bottle of aspirin on the dashboard of his truck, and watching him come home from a day on the job, dirty and tired, a witness of how hard he worked. He built the fireplace in our home on 48th Street, and I've never seen one like it before. He let me lay the last brick, it was the only one to fall off over the years.
I worked for my father as a teenager before I was old enough to get a job at a grocery store sacking groceries. It was not easy to work for him, never a moment to sit still, especially for the boss' son. He owned his own contracting company and with my Mom by his side managed to do well due to their diligence in what they were doing. My father didn't tell me how to work hard, he showed me. He still probably doesn't know to this day that there were a few times when I was a child that I was awakened slightly as he very quietly walked into my bedroom, dark as night still outside my windows and kissed me on the head before heading out the door for another day at work. Once looking at the clock beside my bed I saw that it was 4 AM. I fell back to sleep, he went to work.
My father didn't tell me how to treat ladies. I learned from my Dad that it was important to open doors for ladies, to offer a seat to a lady in a crowded room where not seats were left, and to always answer with, "yes ma'am," or, "no, ma'am." It was an unspoken, but clear understanding that there are ways and words that boys may use among the boys, but never in the company of ladies. That said, I must also admit I never learned to use foul language or tell bawdy jokes from my Dad. I can hardly recount a time when I heard my Dad use some of the words that have flown from my own mouth too freely in frustration or anger. I recall on the early morning ride to work for my Dad the first time when I was thirteen he said, "You're going to hear a lot of things on this job site, I don't want to see you standing and listening to any of it, and I certainly don't want to hear you repeat any of it around your mother or anyone else for that matter." He was right. I heard a lot of crude talk and nasty jokes. I learned to cuss in Spanish. None of it was from my father. I know that he was not the Saint on the job, but I wouldn't have known it.
My father didn't tell me how to be a husband, he showed me. Before my own wedding there were no speeches on the virtues of a good husband or the ways to treat a wife. I like to think that he knew I had seen it enough to recognize the right and wrong way to conduct myself. It was obvious to me that he has taken to this day his vow to love and honor my Mom, "for better, for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health." As with any couple there were arguments, some more heated than others but always resolved. Of many classmates I was becoming a rarer breed that had both parents living together under the same roof, a blessing I didn't realize until much later in life. We never worried or wondered where Dad was when he wasn't working or at home, never chasing him to bars or spending time with the wrong company. He is a family man.
My father never told me how to be a father, he showed me. I learn more and more as years roll along that to have raised me as a son must've been quite a challenge at times. I've already mentioned the thickness of my head but not it's connection to my mouth. More than once we butted heads and I said things that I wish I could take back, but we know that once words are uttered they have their own life and are no longer retrievable. Still his words to me in those times may have been harsh, but not unloving in any way. I was fortunate enough to look and see my parents at all of my school programs and sports events, affirming me with their presence. Knowing they were there at my college graduation was probably more exciting for them than it was for me, a sort of breath of relief. Isn't college the best seven years of everyone's life? I was shown how to be a father by the simple art of, "being there." In times both good and bad, triumphant and trying, Dad was there.
Yes, he taught me many things. Riding a bike, how to fish, how to shoot a shotgun, how to catch and throw, the way to hustle on a ball field. Many words we shared and still do. It was also things that he didn't tell me, rather he showed me that have lasted as well. In times of worry and disappointment, still my parents were there.
Reading in Henri J.M. Nouwen's book The Return of the Prodigal Son I see the loving hands of the father and remember my parents hands:
"I felt drawn to those hands. I did not fully understand why. But gradually over the years I have come to know those hands. They have held me from the hour of my conception, they welcomed me at my birth, held me close to my mother's breast, fed me, and kept me warm. They have protected me in times of danger and consoled in times of grief. They have waved my good-bye and always welcomed me back. Those hands are God's hands. They are also the hands of my parents...those whom God has given me to remind me how safely I am held."
My father is a man, and no man is perfect. But I proudly carry his name and pass it to a new generation. I am not half the man I see in my Dad. What he has taught me with his words I still have hidden in my heart and even in the dusty cobwebbed recesses of my mind. What he showed me I can still picture often. In many falls from grace wandering the rambling way of my existence in this life, I pray often that I can see at the end of my life that I somehow, someway, became half the man my Dad showed me I could be.
