![]() In the early hours of August 31 my dad passed from this life to the church triumphant. He had been in the hospice unit less than 24 hours. I truly believe he was just ready to go. He had been battling a host of progressive illnesses for four years, he had been in the hospital a good three of those four years. Towards the end he was constantly fighting for air and he was in pain almost constantly. He never wanted to live that way. I think that when he finally made the decision to accept hospice care he finally was able to let go and rest. I will miss him something fierce. But, as I've mourned and missed him already, I realize that there is so much I learned from him. Dad teaching #1: Don't underestimate the value of silence If you ever met my dad you would know that he was not a man of many words. Never one for offering a lengthy discourse, his rule of thumb was that you should communicate what you need in the minimum number of words possible. This, of course, could be frustrating if you wanted to have a deep conversation or really plumb the depths of his feelings. My dad found a lot of rest and peace in quiet or just having music or the tv on as background noise. It allowed him to think through other things while he read the paper or had a cigarette. Silence was restorative to my dad. What it also did was made it so that when he did speak it meant people were more apt to listen because he did so infrequently. He loved John Wayne and Clint Eastwood and I believe he really adopted Theodore Roosevelt's theory of "speak softly and carry a big stick." Silence was not something to fear or avoid. It didn't mean that anything was lacking. Silence was just that, silence. Dad's teaching #2: Silence will often invite others to speak, you should listen. What a dad who loved silence taught me as a little girl was that my dad was always there to listen to me. For a young Robyn there was nothing more inviting than a listening ear. Because of his quiet nature I found myself regularly seeking him out to pour out all of my inner thoughts, feelings, hopes, dreams and fears. He taught me how to shoot pool on the pool table in our basement. I was never very good but I was always asking him to go and shoot pool with me. Dad figured out pretty quickly that it wasn't me actually wanting to shoot pool. What that time meant for me was that he was going to turn on the radio to either country or oldies, he was going to roundly beat me at pool, and while all that was going on, I was going to tell him every thought that went through my mind. We would spend hours in the basement shooting pool. This was what we did when I needed to figure out something going on in my head. Whether it was if I had a crush on a boy at school (don't you know that dad's LOVE hearing about their daughter's love lives), or my complaints about classes, or when I couldn't figure out why my friend and I were having a fight. I could find endless ways to fill the silence my dad left for me. And this wasn't just empty chatter. While he never really gave advice, my dad did listen to what I was saying and he would ask questions or make simple statements, and that would be enough for me to start working through it on my own. Dad just seemed to know that what I needed more than sage advice or a thousand words responding to or dissecting my train of thought was someone who genuinely heard what I was saying and acknowledged my experience as reality. Dad's teaching #3: Timing, while not everything, matters My dad was laid back. He would go with the flow and what my mom or my siblings or I wanted was generally fine for him. But he knew exactly when to use the timing of something to work for him if he needed it to. The favorite story I have about my dad's timing is when he proposed to my mom. I wasn't a glimmer in anyone's eye at this point, so I wasn't there for this, but I heard the story enough. My mom was lying on the couch of her house, sicker than a dog and just absolutely miserable. Dad, God love him, apparently decided that this was as good a time as any to ask her a big question. He got down on one knee next to her by the couch and asked her to marry him. I won't keep you in suspense, she said yes. There could possibly have been a better time to propose but the time he did choose made for a memorable story that is still fun to tell. Dad's teaching #4: Hard-work is important but it can have a cost Dad was a hard-working man. His whole life he worked with his hands at different manufacturing plants. Before that he was in the air force. Before that he loved helping on his dad's farm. Hard-work was important and it was just a part of life. It wasn't something to shy away from and it would build character. Although there could be a cost with hard-work. My dad lost a couple fingers in the work he did. But it never stopped him from continuing to do what needed to be done. My dad didn't work because he wanted to be rich. In fact, my dad would tell me that he grew up poor and he was completely fine always being poor, but that he needed to make sure that he had enough to take care of his family. Dad didn't have a use for tons of money, never understood why people thought it was going to make them happy. He would just as happily wear his jeans until they were no longer covering everything appropriately, and that's after patching with duct tape (a habit my mom broke him of, finally). My dad's hands were rough. You could tell his hands hand been busy his whole life. I remember when I had my tonsils out (and ended up having strep throat during the surgery so I had to stay in the hospital longer), my dad came up after work and held my hand and would rub it and at first I protested because his hands were so warm and rough, but then, it struck me that it was just who he was. That was how I knew it was my dad. Dad teaching #5: It is ok to unapologetically love your pets. If you asked my dad, any of the pets that were ever in our homes were not his pets. They were my mom's or my siblings or mine or my uncle's. Yet, he could always be seen giving them some extra pettings or ear scratches when he thought no one was watching. Dad would try and claim that the animals hated him but in reality they just loved playing with him. It would bring him no end of delight to pretend to scare the cat only to see the cat come right back to do it all again. Finally, after he retired, he got HIS dog. Rosie. She waited for him when he would leave and stayed by his side. She had her dog bed in the kitchen by where he would sit and he loved to spoil her. Rosie became a BIG dog and my dad just adored her. She was his baby and he treated her as such and did so with no care to what anyone else thought. Dad's teaching #6: There are hundreds of ways to say I love you without using those words. As I mentioned, my dad wasn't one for many words. He would tell me he loved me. But there was a plethora of ways he showed me he loved me and others without saying the words. Whether it was telling me to be careful when I was driving anywhere or to keep out of trouble, I knew what was underneath it was his love for me. Quite regularly he would tell my nephew, who received his motorcycle from my dad, "don't do anything stupid on that bike, y'hear?" It might have been something like telling me what to watch out for when going out to do something. You don't need to use the specific words in order to let someone know they are loved by you. Dad's teaching #7: Don't be afraid to dance because of what other people might think I've always been self-conscious. It's not one of my finer traits that I worry a lot about what other people might think. My poor dad experienced this with me most strongly when he took me to a father daughter dance when I was in second or third grade. We got all dressed up, took all the obligatory pictures, and then went to the dance. I was fine as we walked around and looked at decorations and got some punch. As soon as he suggested we start to dance and went to the dance floor, I froze up and started to cry and ran to the girl's bathroom. Well, there wasn't a whole lot he could do while I was in there crying so he just waited outside. When I finally came out and told him through sniffles that I was scared about what other people would say about me since I didn't know how to dance. My dad just laughed and shook his head and told me to not pay attention to other people but to just focus on dancing the way that felt right to me, and then proceeded to let me step all over his feet while trying to dance and making me laugh the whole time. I'm proud to say that there was not a similar incident when he came to my father daughter dance for my sorority at college. We had a great night with no hiding in the bathroom to cry. Dad's teaching #8: Beware of seasickness but also know what causes it So, my great indoors-woman-ness (patent pending) was not inherited from my dad. In fact, he loved everything outdoors, whether it was camping, fishing, sitting out on the porch, going to the farm, digging in the dirt, etc. If he could have spent all his life outside he would have. Yet, somehow he ended up with me.... When I was younger he made the wise investment in a camper, figuring that it was the best of both worlds. You know, my mom and I could still enjoy the luxuries of being indoors while being technically in the outdoors. Now, while I may not like the outdoors, the one thing I did pick up from my dad was a love of fishing. I really enjoy fishing, it might be my introverted nature and the typical quiet that accompanies fishing, but I LOVED going to the lake at the campground to fish with my dad. One day he got particularly enthusiastic and rented a boat to take out on the lake and took my brother with him first. It didn't last long though as they came back because my brother was fighting some pretty extreme seasickness. Well, I decided it was then my turn, but not before we stopped at the little campsite store and bought and ice cream cone. So, my dad is navigating our boat out onto the water and I am eating away at my ice cream cone. About halfway out I pipe up: "Oh no! I must have seasickness!" and promptly continued to eat my ice cream. I had no idea what it meant to be seasick, I just overheard that Scott had it and so it must just be something you get when going out on a boat. Dad loved to tell that story and got the biggest laugh every time remembering the fact that I convinced myself to be seasick mid-ice cream cone. Moral of the story, know what something is before you claim to have it. Dad teaching #9: Swimming underwater works better when all of you makes it under the water What I think was my dad's favorite story to tell about me was how he had to teach me to swim underwater. He would always tell people how great a swimmer I was and how sad he was that I gave it up when I went to high school. He was particularly proud of my backstroke and how graceful it was. Apparently my back stroke was so good I could even beat him in a race. (Which is a feat considering I was about 4' something to his 6'4). Yet, there was one type of stroke that eluded me. That would be swimming underwater. I declared to him that I was so proud of myself because I could finally swim underwater. Of course, being excited for me he asked me to show him. And I would have told you that I showed him the most graceful, lovely, picture-perfect underwater swimming that had ever existed.... Until I came up from under the water to see him doubled over laughing hysterically. Apparently, my beautiful stroke was lacking in the fact that all of me, except for my butt, was underwater. So, there was this upside-down V going along across the pool for all I was worth, butt firmly in the air above the water. This was, unfortunately, not an easy habit to break me of. Dad just couldn't seem to get through to me that my butt was not actually under the water. Finally he had the great idea that there needed to be some kind of incentive in order for me to get my booty down under the water. He started throwing quarters down to the bottom of the pool and telling me to go get them and that whichever ones I was able to retrieve I got to keep. Well, having learned a bit about being thrifty from him, I found my incentive to get down underwater completely and totally. It took a total of about $2.75 for me to learn this skill. Dad teaching #10: A look can say way more than any words you can choose
My mom and dad perfected their punishment routine at home. My mom was the one who would express with words just what you had done wrong, why they were disappointed, what you could have done instead, and what the punishment would be. She is not quite as sparse in using words as my dad. So, we would sit at the kitchen table while my mom informed us of the error in our ways. But my dad never said a word during these times. He didn't have to. Instead, he would stand in the doorway with his arms crossed across his chest and give us "the look." It is hard to describe the look. It was a combination of narrowed eyes, something between a frown and a scowl, eyebrows doing the angry slanty thing, and a posture that says: "you done messed up." Many times if we were acting up he didn't have to say a single word. We would all simply see him give us "the look" and we'd shape up. My mom never understood it, but it was all communicating way more efficiently than any words he could have said. I know there are hundreds of more things my dad taught me through my life. (An honorable mention might be that there is a time and place for "sentence enhancers.") And I hope that one day I can pass on to Lucas, and if we're blessed with baby girl, the lessons of life that my dad taught me and that I can do them with a smirk and smile and a laugh that says, don't take yourself so seriously. What I know for sure is that I will miss him deeply but I know that he is finally free from the pain and suffering he endured and that we will meet again at the great feast. I love you Dad.
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AuthorI've been Robyn for my whole life. I've been a wife for 10 years and a mom for 5 years. I've been a pastor for about 10 years. I'm still stumbling, but I'm still standing. Archives
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