I spent Father’s Day in town with Amy. Lacey celebrated the day with her husband Nick and son Madden in Nashville, the place she should have been. We traveled to Chattanooga yesterday to be with Dallas for the day. Our return Saturday gave him a chance to rest before beginning the second term of summer school on Monday. Even Snoop was away at the vet’s since we weren’t sure of the time we’d be back from Chattanooga. I enjoyed a low-key day with just Amy, but twangs of missing the kids hit a couple of times during the day.
I’ve also thought about my own dad on this celebratory day. He died in 1965 when Jim and I were thirteen. So, for more than forty years, we’ve not had a father on whom we could shower gifts and “I love you’s.” No, this isn’t a moment of self-pity. Instead, it’s a moment of reflection on the man we called Daddy and on why I made some of the mistakes with my own two children.
Daddy wasn’t “kid-friendly.” He worked too hard and too long. Shifts rotated weekly so that the man rarely knew what time of day it was. He was sleep deprived and in poor health. His pay wasn’t that good, and he attributed that fact to his having only finished the sixth grade, after which he began a life of work to help out his family.
Dal Rector worried. It’s the Rector Curse. He fretted over money, insurance, our education, Mother’s having to work—EVERYTHING! One of the vivid pictures in my mind is of his sitting at the kitchen table. He wore a t-shirt, the kind with straps, and a pair of work pants. To one side sat a green mug with coffee so thick that it must have been spooned from the percolator. To the other side sat his elephant ashtray. A Winston was pinched between two fingers; Daddy’s left hand propped up his head. His shoulders were rounded and slumped from the weight of his world. Before him lay a small spiral notebook, the kind that can be carried in a shirt pocket. He held in his right hand a pencil with which he “figured” how to stretch too little money across to much month.
Survival of his family was the name of the game. Daddy didn’t have time to fool with playing. In the end, I suppose he knew best as he tried to make sure Mother had all possible help rearing three boys alone.
When my kids came, I was determined to be more involved in their lives. I made sure they knew how to hit a baseball, how to dribble a basketball, and how to throw a football. I coached their teams. We went on vacations, and I “made sure” they had a good time. It was important to me that they had Christmases where their most wished for presents were under the tree. I helped with homework as much as I could. Keeping busy with them showed that I cared, or at least I thought it did.
I fought battles with my own children. All too often I pushed my children hard and made mountains out of mole hills on many occasions. They sometimes resented me, a fact that had me thinking of them as ungrateful. To me, if they knew what it was like to live without a dad, my two children would have changed their tunes.
The fact is that they didn’t have to live without a dad. I was there, but I pushed too hard. Kids need plenty of room to grow and learn. Smothering them, the way I did, drove them to a distance where they could breathe. I see that now. I wish that realization had come earlier so that life would have been easier for them and me.
What I can see now is that my dad did the best he knew how to do. He loved in his way. I did the same. In both cases, our ways were far from perfect. I’m lucky because I’ve adapted to be what my children need in a dad. What my dad missed out on most of all were the chances to watch his sons grow into men and to tell him he was loved and respected. I’d love to thank him for all he did for us as well.
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