Missing Dad

As this Father’s Day approaches, I’ve found myself thinking more about my Dad.  He was in his fifties when I was born, so we didn’t have the close relationship of most.  I don’t ever remember playing football or tossing a baseball with him. 

He was a quiet man, except when something didn’t work right.  He had served on a submarine in the Navy.  That experience endowed him with words that could make my Mom madder than a wet cat.  “Jack” she would scream after hearing a sixty- second barrage of harsh language.  He’d look, and say, “what”?  The salty language would just come out automatically.  He didn’t even realize it. 

Mother was a devoted Christian and a faithful member of the Church of Christ.  Her Dad was an Elder who lived within rock throwing distance of our house.  Dad didn’t go to church.  He did at one time, but got angry over an incident involving a preacher and something about the Lord’s Supper.  The details remain a mystery to me and I’m not sure why I never asked.  I guess I figured Dad wouldn’t say anything about it and Mom was just too embarrassed.  He would listen to gospel music every Sunday morning.  I think now that he probably missed attending.  I did see Dad in church one time at Easter, when I was little.  Then, never again.  It must have brought back too many memories.

Again, Dad was mostly quiet about things.  He didn’t say much in a conversational way.  Course, it was probably because Mom did all the talking.  They were opposite in most regards.  I easily figured out neither were happy with the other, even at my young age.  They fought a lot, not loud fighting, but the quiet kind.  They wouldn’t speak to each other for days, and then suddenly everything would be back to normal.  He probably learned, like most married men, it’s best to be quiet!

Money was always tight.  Dad didn’t make that much as a meat cutter and Mom tended to impulse buy at times.  She controlled the checkbook, and for some reason, couldn’t keep the balance correct.  I remember meals of cornbread and milk.  We had a lot of pinto beans and discounted meat that Dad would get at work.  We never went hungry, so Dad was a good provider.

He had tons of integrity.  I saw Dad cry once. My sister’s boyfriend was arrested by the Sheriff for theft.  No one in our family had ever had trouble with law enforcement.   Dad took that hard, but moved past it. 

He smoked two packs of Cool cigarettes for most of his life.  Finally, he decided to quit smoking somewhere around my high school years.  Five years later, he was diagnosed with emphysema and began a slow suffocating death.  It is a cruel disease because it slowly takes your breath away over a period of years.

Dad fought it admirably, but death finally came to the quiet man who was devoted to his family.   Being much older now, I respect him more now than I ever did while I was young.  I know he went through hard times with difficult people.  He probably had much to tell me, but I was too busy to ask or listen.  Most of us take our parents for granted.  All you can think about, being young, is fledging the nest and starting out on your own.  After that, most never look back. 

This Father’s Day, if your dad is still around, appreciate it.  Maybe you’d like to ask him something that will bother you twenty years from now, when he’s gone.  It’ll bother you, not because you don’t have the answer, but maybe because you didn’t ask the question.