Sunday Story...Happy Father's Day

Sunday Story…Happy Father’s Day

Today is Father’s day.  I don’t often link these stories to actual dated events but I am going to make an exception this week. 

Every week I write this Sunday Story.  I have been doing it for just over 3 years…that means over 156 stories…over 156,000 words (each one is about 1000 words)…over 156 pages at a 12 point typeface.  That is a fair amount of writing.  Sometimes I touch you, my reader, more deeply than others.  Sometimes I reach inside and really spill my heart out and you get it and other times you don’t.  It doesn’t really matter because I figure you get the things you are meant to get and all the rest is just so much fluff anyway.

Every week my mother prints this story out so my father can read it over his breakfast.  At 78 years old the print is a little larger and it takes him a little longer to read it than it did a year or two ago.  My father’s health is failing.  Slowly, inexorably, sometimes painfully failing.  I suppose it is part of the natural ebb and flow of life but it is still heart rendering to watch and hear about.  I feel sad I am not there as often as I would like.  Anyway Dad, this one is for you…

There are many things I learned from my father.  The older I get the more I realize how many lessons there were for me.  The older I get the more impact those lessons have and the more I come to appreciate all the gifts I was given by having a father like the one I had in my life.  I hope my children were ½ as fortunate.

I learned the value of working hard.  My father worked all day and then came home and worked at home.  At different times in my life he was a school teacher, a farm worker, a truck driver, a quality control inspector for nuclear plants and some other things I have forgotten.  We lived on a horse ranch for a year or two.  We owned a vineyard at one point for several years.  I remember my dad worked.  When we were raising sheep for 4-H projects he was there to help and to bury the orphan lambs that didn’t make it through the nights.  I learned how to prune a grape vine.  I learned to put in a day’s work in the field and do the job correctly the first time, no matter how cold it was or how much you really wanted to quit.  We milked cows together in the hours before dawn as “replacement” milkers for local dairymen.  It was a job that got done no matter what.  There was no fail.  It was a position of extreme trust that these men placed in my father and he, in turn, in me.  If the job was worth doing it was going to be done well.

Which leads me to another lesson...I learned it really wasn’t important what you did.  What was important was how you did it.  Did you do the absolute best you could?  Was the job done above and beyond expectation?  Are you the best at what you are doing or are you working on being the best?  At one point in my young life I can remember telling my dad that I didn’t know what I wanted to do or be but I was going to be the best at whatever I ended up doing. 

Once when I was maybe 7 or 8 years old we had gone to a family reunion.  Most of the extended family lived way up in western Washington and we were living in California outside of Sacramento at the time.  I was just at that age where all these people were interesting and I really had no idea who they all were.  But my dad was inviting them all to our house to visit.  I remember asking him later…”Dad, you invited all these people to our house.  What if they all show up?  Where will we put them all?”  His answer was simple…”I invited them because it’s polite and gracious.  And if they all show up we will make room for them because they are family.”  Of course most of them never came to California and those that did didn’t all show up at the same time.  I learned to be polite and gracious.

Another time my father was teaching special education in a small school in Washington.  I was 12 or 13.  He had to drive something like 50 miles each way to go to work and then come home and run the horse ranch we were living on at the time.  I think I resented him being gone that much or something stupid like that and one day I asked him…”why are you teaching those retards anyway?”  In a flash I saw his face go from anger to extreme sadness at my thoughtless question.  Before and since, I don’t think I have ever seen such sadness and certainly not on my father’s face.  His answer went something like this…” these children deserve our help.  They aren’t stupid. They are different certainly yet they are, in many ways, like you and I…they want to be loved, they want to contribute and they are often the kindest most loving people I have ever known.  I hope I never hear that word come out of your mouth again.”  In that moment I learned compassion and the value of seeing every person for the divine spark they carry within their soul.

My father gave me permission to lead my life.  He never tried to run it for me.  He gave me advice and still loved me when I didn’t take it.  He encouraged me to be who I could be.  When I made mistakes (and I made plenty of them) I can never remember him coming down on me with contempt and criticism and condemnation.  It would have been easy for him to do as many of my transgressions were worthy of all three of those things.  I learned to love.

So…

Work hard

Be the best

Be Polite and Gracious  

Have Compassion and Understanding

Love

Thanks Dad.  Happy Fathers Day.

Love, your son, John.

Namaste

John

“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”

www.martialartsnevada.com

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