What I Learned from My Father

It is Father’s Day. While others can take their dad to breakfast on this beautiful day, share a nice gift, and give them a warm hug, I cannot. He died in December, 2003.

He was a unique individual, and I know that I held a special place in his heart. I was his little girl. No matter what happened, he was there for me.

In college, the special letters with a handwritten scrawl that appeared in my mailbox were from him. Inside there was always an extra $20.00; but more importantly, there was a note of encouragement. And sometimes there was an additional letter with an extra $30, much to my mother’s chagrin. (She thought that he spoiled me.) He always ended the notes by saying that he was proud of me.

A man of limited ambitions, he worked in a mailroom for the U.S. Post Office in southern West Virginia. His job was monotonous. While my mother encouraged him to take supervisory positions, they were not for him.

The men at work called him fireball. We will never know if it is because he threw mail fast or at a snail’s pace. Today, it does not matter. He will always live in my memory as a “fireball.”

My dad encouraged me to fulfill my dreams. When the men at the Post Office chided him that he should not educate his daughter because I would just run off and get married and have children, he retorted, “When you educate a daughter you educate a family.” Dad, you were right. Your granddaughter just graduated with a PHD in nursing.

As a creative man, he was unique. (The picture depicts him in front of a chess set that he made.) While work was a chore -- a job to be done for money -- he carved wood, collected insects, and hiked the trails of West Virginia. In many ways, he was a loner. While he quipped the most remarkable one liners, he was not a man’s man. He encouraged me to be creative. We spent time laying in the grass describing clouds and telling stories on trails. He sparked my creativity.

I was the youngest child of three. I was his only girl, and I think that I was his special pal. We canoed together, played Pinochle and Scrabble on Sunday nights, and walked the mountains of Appalachia. As we did, he told me the stories of World War II and fighting in the European theatre. He told me an account of helping men escape to freedom across what became the Berlin wall, and stopping a train of Russian Jews, recovered from the camps, to be forced back to Russia. His soul was scarred by opening some of the internment camps. His advice, was always, “Do what is right.”

He told me that life was too short to not do what you like. He would often remind me that life was not about money and personal objects; instead, it was about following the passion in your heart. I am not sure how I got the passion that I got in my heart to do what I do, but my freedom to follow my dream came from my dad.

While I took life for granted, he always reminded me to take pictures, record voices and tell people that I love them. “Life is short,” he would say. I did not understand the concept at the time, but I do now. Next month for my birthday, I will play an old recording of him singing happy birthday to me on my fortieth birthday for my sixtieth. His voice lives on because he told me to record it. His spirit is with me, but his body is gone.

So, today is father’s day. I am writing this blog post, to say Dad, “I miss you, but I am thankful for your help and support and unconditional love for helping me to be who I am today.” Hopefully, someday, I can give you another hug….