The Man My Father Was

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I want to start by first telling you who my Father was.

My father was the man, whom quietly delivered a pile of Christmas gifts under a lonely little Christmas tree in an apartment one Christmas Eve in the mid 1970’s. He didn’t tell my mother what he was doing, as they were not married yet. She was a single mother, working and struggling to keep us healthy and fed and she didn’t have an idea what she was going to do to get through Christmas. As the light started to peek through the windows, I jumped up and ran to my Mom’s room, but not without sneaking a look at the tree. Sure enough, Santa had come! I started telling my Mom to get up and she said that she didn’t think Santa had gotten there yet. I blurted out an item my eyes had captured as I had quickly scanned the scene. She suddenly sat up and said, “Are you Sure?”…It wasn’t until much later that I realized that on that very morning, for a brief moment, my mother believed in Santa too.

My father was the man who insisted on taking two little girls with them on their honeymoon. And to top it off, their “honeymoon” was in Disney World.

He was the same man that always pushed me to excel at my studies because he “knew I had it in me”. He cried at my graduation and did the same when his first Grandson was born. Years later, he held my hand many times while I struggled through a divorce and insisted when I met my now, “Significant Other”, that I go on that date we had planned, even though he was in the hospital for one of his many unfortunate visits. I lived with both he and my mother for about a year after my divorce, while I got my funds saved up to get my own place. Many times I would awaken to feel him placing another blanket on me during the night. Later my Mother informed me he checked on me every night at least once to make sure I was covered up. – I was 37 years old at that time.

As a little girl who had been abandoned by one man and trusted few others, I wasn’t always easy to deal with. To put it bluntly, I was often a “real pain in the butt”. There were many times; far more than I’d like to admit, that I didn’t appreciate the lengths this man went to, to try to show me my worth. But as the years went on, it became evident to me that I was beyond fortunate to have been spared the dysfunction of my birth-father and so blessed that God had sent me someone who could and wanted to do so much better.

A little over 2 years ago, as he laid in the hospital bed, my mother, sister and I were all trying to come to grips with his impending death. I quietly asked my mom if I could have a minute alone with him. His eyes were closed and his breathing was deep and steady. I held his hand, as he had done for me so many times throughout my life and I told him how much of a miracle he was in my life. I thanked him for all the things he taught me to do that had made me as independent as I am. I thanked him for being a living example to my sons as to what a man is suppose to be. I thanked him for giving my children the best Grandpa anyone could ask for. But, most of all, I shared with him the gratitude I felt toward him for being the Dad he didn’t HAVE to be. Throughout my words and tears, he would acknowledge that he could hear me with a faint “uhhuh”. I asked him lastly, if he knew how much the boys and I loved him. He gave me one last “yes”. I kissed his cheek and told him that it was ok if he needed to go now. He had hung on for far more years than we ever dreamt he could and then I left the room. I knew then, that would be our last conversation, but I also knew that he left this earth knowing that he had made many differences in this world and that he was loved.

I think of him every day. It’s usually when I go to fix something and I stop to think how he would have told me to do it. Or it’s when I glance around my home at all the many pieces of wood that he crafted into beautiful pieces of furniture, with his own hands. Sometimes, it’s just a comment that I’m sure he would have made about something or someone; he had a wicked sense of humor. But it’s through all of those things, I know that he is still with us and always will be. And for that I am also so thankful.

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