I missed the chance to post something for Father’s Day this year since I have been locked out of my blog site for several weeks. (Yes, technology is a wonderful thing when it works.) Anyway, I’m finally back in and so I wanted to share another story about my rather unassuming and yet, awesome dad. As I was growing up, my dad would take occasions, perhaps a birthday, or, maybe just seeing a deer out in the cornfield, and he would be inspired to write a little poem. He even sent letters in rhyme and just seemed to enjoy the opportunity to turn his thoughts into quiet reflections and newsy notes. I always thought this was a sweet gesture on dad’s part, but I never understood how much it really meant to him until he was more advanced in age.
It happened when he was driving my husband and me around our small towns in upstate New York. Dad had lived there his whole life, so he was sharing one story after another. At one point, we were stopped by the river near an old bridge that crossed the Susquehanna. The bridge was no longer in use, but a new bridge had been built next to it. For some reason, the old bridge had never been taken down. My dad told us that when he was a young man and was just dating my mother, that she lived on one side of the bridge, and he lived on the other. My husband asked dad if he had used that old bridge to walk over and see my mother back then. Dad said, “No, I ran!” We couldn’t help smiling thinking of him running across the bridge to see the young girl who would become my mom. It was such a sweet picture.
On that same trip, dad pointed out the places where some of my family members had once lived. One of those was his grandfather, whom I never met. He told us that at Christmastime, grandpa would gather all the kids in the hallway and make them wait while he put their Christmas gifts on the tree. Dad said he remembered waiting with great anticipation. Oh, they weren’t getting fancy gifts wrapped in sparkling papers, they were getting a gift that was far more personal. It turned out that grandpa wrote a poem for each child and put the child’s name at the top. They were always excited to see what grandpa would say in his poem about them.
These two stories not only remind me how precious my dad really was, but how much he influenced my life simply by being a kind and generous man, who liked to communicate in poetry. I’ve been writing poems and stories and other things my entire life, and I’m pretty sure, he was my first inspiration. Families express love to one another in very different ways. I would say my dad was always willing to express his heart, even as he watched a bird pecking at the feeder off his porch or noticed the path of a butterfly drifting off toward the horizon. I loved the gifts he shared so often with love.
Happy Father’s Day, a little late, to all of you who bring love and joy and blessing to the children in your lives.