Fathers are a dime a dozen. But, a good, good father is much harder to find.
As a little girl, I was blessed with a good, good daddy. He had already been a father for about 30 years by the time I came along and he got the job, again. He was 51 years old when I was born, and he already had 3 grandkids of his own. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy thing for him to do. But, I always knew he loved me so very much and would do anything in the world to care for me.
My memories of him are of watching him work on our farm, driving his big red farm truck that he used for hauling cattle to market, driving his tractors, plowing fields, baling big bales of hay, chasing red and white or black cows in the pasture, and sometimes cussing out the stubborn ones!
Another big memory of him that I cherish is of him in his “Mountain Hoosier” watermelon patch. He loved to grow them every year, and we usually had some really big ones! Daddy had a way of walking around in his patch, thumping a melon with his finger to listen and hear if it was ripe or not. It had a certain sound that he knew. I never learned it. I’ve tried to do that in stores, hurt my finger, felt a little foolish, and still didn’t know if it was ripe!
Sometimes he would go out in the watermelon patch, pick out a melon, drop it on the ground to break it open, then use his pocketknife to cut the heart out and eat it right there in the patch! When my hubby started dating me, he always thought that was pretty cool to see!
Anyone who came over to our house in the summertime, always got to eat all of the watermelon they wanted! We had an old table outside, and after grabbing a knife and the salt shakers from the house, we were ready to eat. We would stand outside and spit the seeds out in the yard under the old oak trees! It didn’t matter if the juice dripped off your chin or your elbows out there on the grass. And it tasted so good!
I often would think of that many years later, when Mike and I had our own kids. By then, eating watermelon usually happened out on the nice table, on the nice deck, and we curtailed spitting the seeds out freestyle anywhere they wanted to spit. I think we actually ruined half of their fun!
Watermelon has never tasted as good as I remember it tasting in my childhood. And, as a mother, I always tried to keep the stickiness off of the floor, and all the seeds on the plates!
I suppose that was just another example of having so-called nice things in this modern, clean, picture perfect environment that we’ve all tried to create in some way, and we get upset when the perfect environment isn’t perfect.
I think we all, big and little people, just had more fun eating watermelon back then! As well as other activities that “nice” things have made more work and less fun.
My daddy didn’t really outwardly claim to be a Christian while I was growing up. He had attended church with my mother at the beginning of their marriage, then just kind of quit going. It was not an easy thing for any of us. I didn’t understand a lot of things back then that I understand better, now.
He had already gone through some very hard times in life. Likely the hardest thing was having his first, young wife die from tuberculosis. After being very ill for several years, she died on Christmas Day when she was 42 years old, leaving him with four children to finish raising.
Needless to say, Christmas Day was never the same for him or his other children. I didn’t understand that feeling until I lost Mike on July 4th, and now I do better understand the pain he must have felt. Even though, every Christmas, he went right on celebrating with his kids and grandkids every year.
He didn’t talk about his terrible loss of her very much, but I always knew it made him sad when he did. I am quite sure he was probably still trying to figure out “the whys” of God allowing it to happen to his family, even as he started another new family with my mother and me.
As an adult, I can understand a little better now, how complicated his emotions must have been through the years as he always wrestled with grief and loss.
My daddy also struggled with a tobacco addiction. He had made a public acceptance of Christ before they were married and had tried to quit chewing. But, he gradually publicly picked it back up. During those years, most evangelical churches would not approve of anyone as a Christian who still had ANY kind of a tobacco habit.
Remember the old saying: “I don’t drink, or smoke, or chew, and I don’t go with girls that do!” Well, my mother certainly didn’t do any of those, but my daddy had loved his Red Tobacco, and the habit loved him again. My mother hated the smell and nastiness of it all, as did the rest of our family. But, the habit held him fast. He tried to deal with it the best way he could, I think. He never kept a spitting can inside the house, but would go outside when he needed to spit! For that, I am grateful, and I’m sure my mother was, too.
So, while there was some turbulence in their marriage, including the tobacco habit, there was enduring and committed love, too. And I always knew I was loved unconditionally by both of them.
When he was about 70, he became very ill and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The Mayo Clinic sent him home with just months to live. But, my mother, sister, and their pastor had a healing service at their home. That day, my Daddy accepted Jesus as his Savior! Everyone there believed he was healed that day! He quit chewing tobacco, gradually started eating again, and gained a lot of the weight back that he had lost. He lived 10 more years until he was 80, and appeared to not die from pancreatic cancer.
So, I am grateful for my good, good father. Most of my friends would think he was my grandpa when they first met him. So I would always feel the need to explain his age.
I guess I’m still explaining things that matter to me. Everyone knows that I married a man who was such a wonderful father to our children. And everyone knows that I’m so proud of our son and our two son-in-laws, who are all super dads to their children! I’m so thankful for them!
But, I am my daddy’s child, and the older I get, the more like him I see myself becoming. He had a great impact on my life in ways that I didn’t really see until I became a mature adult. I guess some of the ways weren’t even obvious until I became a senior citizen!
I am grateful for his gift of life to me, especially at his age. I am thankful for his love, his musical genes, his fortitude, his soft heart, and his dry humor, that he passed along to me.
I still wish I could hug him in his Big Smith denim blue overalls, work shirt, brown work boots, and his farm cap, all slightly smelling of the outdoors, unless he had just cleaned up to go somewhere!
Thank you, Daddy, for just being you. Thank you for loving Jesus in your own way, and finally working out the things of submission with Him. I’m so glad I believe you are waiting for me in heaven, along with all the rest of the ones I’ve loved who have been gathering there quite quickly.
I think you’ll probably flip the porch light on for me when it’s time for me to come inside.