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| My Mother and Father on my wedding day. |
But there was a time when the people around us were there for the purpose of keeping us alive and well. Today I am thinking about my beautiful father.
I could use all those superlative that people use when they describe their parent both bad and good. But that is not what this about. This about the reality of life during a time when humans were essential to us...remember?
My dad loved ice cream in the middle of a half cantaloupe and he shook the sand out of his shoes in the middle of the living room floor. He made kites and wrestled with grandchildren but never hurt them. His smile was full of mischief and his heart was full of love. And, without him in my young life my mother and I would not have survived in any tolerable way.
He worked in a mining operation that made cement in a far corner of eastern Oregon. He was the lead electrician. His job involved riding in a tram bucket to a quarry across a canyon or taking a very long hike and ending in the same place. He was on top of a huge kiln that exploded breaking his ankle. He spent his overtime hours working on a conveyor belt in the dark with a flashlight and no help.
When he did not come home, I remember the knot in my stomach and standing with my mother watching for his car headlights.
He was, in the truest words, an essential father.
He lived to be about 75 years old and still had drawings of project in his pocket when he died
. I admired and loved him then and I still do. How could anyone not treasure a person like him?
Happy Father's Day.
b+
A fitting tribute to your father. I'm reminded of my dad - always the parent who would watch Bugs Bunny with us before the hockey game on Saturday night; the parent who would buy the goodies not on the grocery list; the parent who would stop at the burger bar for soft ice cream midway on the trip to the big city; the one who said he was happy with his 3 daughters when asked if he wished he'd had a son; the one who asked if there was anything he could do even after he'd had 2 legs amputated. Here's to those fathers.
ReplyDeleteI hold my father up as an example for my children and grandchildren. I did not ever hear anyone say he was anything but kind and a true gentleman. I liked that so much.
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