Lessons Learned from a Father
Where to start with the thoughts of my dad and the lessons that I learned from him. We all have a parent or role model in our life that left a lasting impact that we may not have realized in the moment or even within the recent times of those impacts.
My dad was an extremely hard worker. For all of my life I can remember him working in a factory of some sort or a machine shop. From what I knew dad was an extremely talented machinist and also had a work ethic that was second to none. Looking back now I realized that some of my frustration as a young adult with my dad and the perception of his lack of being at certain important events for me was misguided. As I see it now it was because both of my parents I was able to do the things that I did such as play baseball and go to summer camps.
My dad would work 6 or 7 days a week and take just about any overtime shift he could get to provide for us so that we could go camping, have a pool and live on a nice little piece of land. As I grew older my dad and I grew apart. A lot of it was because he was a stubborn ass old man, or so I thought, and like most kids, thought I was always right.
To say my relationship with my father was rocky and tumultuous was probably an understatement. It seemed it was very much an on-again-off-again relationship between the two of us that was built around frustration, lack of patience, misguided anger and a general misunderstanding of each other.
Sadly I did not realize this until the last month of his life when I was able to spend possibly the most quality time I've ever spent with him. On one hand it saddens me that it took me that long to get the fuck over myself and get to know him a little better. On the other hand it makes me happy that I actually had that opportunity.
Looking back now, what is it that my dad really taught me?
Dad was not always the type to pick you up and give you a hug and tell you he was proud of you, he was more of a leader than I realized. A lot of the things that I learned from him came from observing and listening not from feeling and experiencing.
In the last month of my Dad's life I learned some of the most important lessons I possibly have ever learned. Not through him telling me but through him showing me.
I learned about patience due to the process of hospitals and having a very aggressive form of cancer. I learned about compassion as I watched the nursing staff and family take care of him and ultimately he tried to the best of his ability to take care of himself. I learn more about resilience watching him getting stuck with all the needles and ultimately continuing down the path amidst the pain it took. I learned about always being the captain of your own Ship by watching him make the decision to go home. I told him when he was ready to go home we would get him home. He fought very hard but he finally got to the point where he took control and said enough was enough and that he wanted to be home. It served as a very firm reminder that no matter how bad of a situation you must always be the captain of your own ship
I watched a man who could turn a rusty Bolt with the quick flick of his wrist on the old Jeep Wagoneer that we had, struggling with most basic tasks like removing a lid from a bottle. For me that helps me understand what true strength is. So another lesson I learned was what true strength is from Dad.
In life we have the opportunity every single day to learn some type of lesson. It is not the lessons that we learn, but it is the way we Implement those lessons into our life that really signifies growth.
THE LESSON:
We can take any person we know and spin them in a good light and a bad light and it is never my intention to spin people in a bad light. My dad was not a perfect person, and he and I didn’t have a perfect relationship. He hid the fact that he was dying from me and my brother. There’s a lot at play that people don’t know about.