A Fathers Day Reflection

My Dad's Dad

My daughters' dad

Finish this sentence: My dad was a _____________.

Normally, I think, our first choice relates to vocation, avocation or career. My dad was a firefighter, farmer, teacher, railroad engineer, preacher, dentist . . . you get the point. Not often would we fill in the blank with a personality trait: funny man, angry man, gentleman, kind man, honest man . . . you get where I’m going with this. And yet, because we generally have only one dad, it’s probably not for what they did to earn a living, but what they were to us that’s of significance.

My dad could laugh so hard the tears would stream; he could listen to a Back to the Bible appeal on the radio with the same effect. A product both of the conditions of his time and his father’s life and situation as he grew up, my father’s options were limited, vocation wise. First a teacher . . . a role for which he wasn’t well suited, then a farmer—equally not a match for his personality and talents—meant there would be no point in writing his history on the basis of career achievements. Never developed a new strain of wheat like Seager Wheeler, never wrote a book like Pierre Berton, never preached a memorable sermon like J.J. Thiessen.

But then, most of us men who become dads have made our peace with boundaries we wistfully accept; raising children, being a faithful, supportive companion and partner to the woman who is their mother often means that motorcycles or fishing/hunting obsessions or any number of open-road choices have to be foregone, unless we’re one of those “accidental dads” who feel trapped into a role by circumstances they’re not ready or willing to accept. Penitentiaries are full of youngish dads who learned how to conduct their lives from an “accidental dad.”

When it comes to our most poignant memories of our dads, it’s got a lot more to do with how they were when we were together day to day than with what they did after leaving the house in the morning. Did we feel protected when dad was nearby? When we talked, did dad actually take time to listen to what we were saying, or what we couldn’t say yet? When dad pursued his passions, did we feel included or abandoned? Did we love to be with him or did we feel a need to tread carefully lest we provoke something in him we probably wouldn’t understand? Was meal time happy, maybe even hilarious, or was it tense? Was our dominant sentiment a wish to please dad, or a strategy to appease or circumvent him? When we needed correction, how did dad deliver it? How did it feel? Did dad play with us, or was he our disconnected chauffeur to play-dates with others?

Perfection in dadness is as rare as hen’s teeth, I imagine, and woe to us if we evaluate our dads unjustly. Like everyone, dads are vulnerable to disease, to disaster, to depressions and anxieties, to treachery or unkindness they may not deserve. Good doctors make mistakes that kill people, skilled airline pilots make errors in judgment with horrendous consequences and caring dads mourn over their failures, echoed, as they may see it, in the unhappiness of their partners, their sons or daughters. An obstinate determination to withhold forgiveness may create a cycle of unhappiness that can reach through generations.

My dad wasn’t perfect. But one thing about him remains like a gold nugget in my heart. He loved me without condition. He forgave my lapses in judgment (and there were more than a few) and he guarded the bridges between us while others were blowing up theirs. I didn’t value this as much as I ought, but I do now.

It’s been 43 years since my dad died. I’ve been many more years without him than with him. As I contemplate the meaning of dadhood and sonhood today, I rejoice in the sheer blessing of having had a dad who never left me until his dadwork was done. Rest in quiet peace, Dad. RIQP.