Gifts from My Father

My Dad was a quiet, soft-spoken man who didn't ask for much from life. He was hard-working and honest, paid his bills on time and shunned buying on credit. Dad was a machinist in a factory, and often worked seven days a week when I was a child, but we were not wealthy - not even close. I didn't realize this when I was a kid, because we always had food on the table, new clothes in the autumn when it was time to go back to school, yearly (modest) vacations, and something under the tree at Christmastime. But, looking back as an adult, I realize my parents must have struggled more than I ever realized. I got my love of nature and animals from my Dad - two things that greatly define me as a person. I can see him now, sitting on the front porch or in a lawn chair under the shade of a tree, sometimes reading the Louis L'Amour westerns he loved so much, but often just sitting...thinking...listening. Dad had a "pet squirrel" named Myrtle that he trained to come inside the door, climb up his pants leg and sit on his chest as he hand-fed her peanuts. He always had a small, backyard garden where he grew tomatoes, green beans, onions, and squash. He made the absolute best homemade vegetable soup and cornbread, and other southern favorites like green beans with ham, fresh, sliced juicy tomatoes and fried potatoes. One of my favorite memories is going mushroom hunting with Dad in the springtime. He taught me where and what to look for, but more often than not, I'd find a comfy fallen log ...and just sit. I loved those times with him in the woods - and I think he knew, although I never told him so. Years later when I'd come to visit from out of state, and would get ready to leave, he'd stand in the doorway, wave and blow me a kiss as I drove away - until I was no longer in sight.

I was brokenhearted when Dad got prostate cancer and passed away on a day in late autumn. I spent the last three months of his life, helping to care for him, along with my mother and sisters. It was both the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, and the most honorable thing. As hard as it was to watch his physical decline, I would not have wanted to be anywhere else in the world. Afterwards, it took months to begin to feel normal again - whatever this new normal was without my dear Dad. That spring, I planted a garden in his honor and the tomatoes were the biggest, reddest,and juiciest that I've ever seen in my life. I desperately wish I could talk to Dad again, and feel one of his hugs. But there are times I believe I can hear his voice - it's there in the whisper of the wind, in the stillness at dusk when I'm sitting in a lawn chair, and in the patter of rain on the windows. I feel his spirit when I'm on my knees planting flowers, or plucking a ripe tomato off the vine, or when I'm simply sitting in a chair, enjoying a summer breeze. I especially smile when I watch a squirrel scamper up a tree and see a bird soar across the sky, and in that moment, I know my Dad is still with me and will live in my heart forever.

"Is it so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun,
to have lived light in the spring,
to have loved,
to have thought,
to have done?" Matthew Arnold