A Tribute To My Father
My dad just turned 60 this year. He’s an amazing man for whom I wrote the following:
I was 14 and my brother was 11. Collectively, we had trouble tipping the scales at 140 pounds. At 30 feet long and 24 inches in diameter, the tree trunk we were trying to rotate out-weighed us by an easy three quarters of a ton. For a solid hour we labored with all manner of failed efforts to budge the fallen monolith. Placidly watching our struggles from his gardening in the font yard my dad let us heave and groan till we were mostly spent before laying his tools aside and crossing the field to where we sat defeated in the grass. Wordlessly he stooped over and placed a thick branch on the ground at the tree-trunk’s center and levered the trunk onto it so that it sat like an oversized seesaw. He placed his hands on the uplifted side, and we watch in rapt amazement as he pushed down so that the trunk sat perfectly balanced on it’s center, and then, with almost maddening ease, rotated it a perfect 90 degrees before dropping it in our desired location. Brushing off his hands he smiled and said, “It’s called a fulcrum.”
My dad is an amazing man. They say that most children go through a stage of feeling superior to their parents, a condition to which Mark Twain once quipped, “When I was a boy of 14 my father was so ignorant that I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in only 7 years.” My father’s expansive talents never afforded me such illusions.
As a child growing up, I held two immutable facts about my father; that he was the strongest man alive and that he contained a genetic repository of all the world’s knowledge and wisdom. While my own strength has grown to match, and my knowledge expanded to encompass similar breadth, my respect and amazement for my father’s wisdom remains unchanged. I look inside myself and wonder if I have this same potential; to lead, and mentor, affect change in the world… and most of all raise my own children with such courage and love. At what point do I make this crossing from boy to man? What right of passage is there to mark this change?
Tom Wolfe writes in The Bonfire of the Vanities
“[He] made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later . . . that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could . . . adopted a role called “Being a Father” so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life.”
I stand now poised upon this same mythical role as ‘father’, looking back on the road my father led me and the vast distances that lie ahead as I lead my children. And as I consider the world I grew up in and all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of my childhood, I have to wonder at the blessing of my father and his shouldering of so great a responsibility. How is it that he balanced this weight with such poise, rotating our course to always face the right direction?
Growing up, Dad always said to me “Remember whose son you are”; a wordplay his father had used in a sermon to remind us, not only to look to what our parents had raised us to be, but also to God our Father as our ultimate role model. It was a reminder that we are from roots that go deeper than ourselves, and bound in that, lies the strength to be more than we are. From this, I believe we find an answer. Perhaps we as boys step over to this great monolith of fatherhood, seemingly unprepared with all the fear of that small child, and reaching down, place beside it the role model of our own father – and his father before him, and his father before him – praying all the while that this fulcrum will not collapse as we balance and steer our own course through the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life.
Who then is my father? What fulcrum do I have to place beneath this great tree that I confidently set aside my comforts and rise to this challenge? He’s the one who showed me how to throw a ball and drive a nail. He showed me how to tie my shoelaces and taught me how to shave. From my father I learned right from wrong and the value of integrity regardless of the cost. He’s the one who showed me how to use a machete; and the one who sewed up my boyhood war-wounds. My dad gave me flammable chemicals for devious pursuits while teaching me how to be responsible. My dad gave me my love for mountains; and horses; and a well-built campfire. From him I learned about God and simple faith. He taught me piano and gave me a love for classical music. He showed me how to fight. He gave me permission to defend myself. He taught me the dignity of walking away. He helped me build model airplanes and homemade kites. He gave me my first pocketknife and bought me another one when I lost it. He modeled the value of giving. My father wasn’t afraid to be himself and taught me how to be independent. He let me lead when I felt strong, and forged ahead when I was too scared. He taught me how to ride a bike, drive a car, shoot a gun, ride horse, skin a rabbit, make an omelet, and plant a garden. He helped me learn to write. He inspired me to compose poetry. From my father I learned the value of discipline, the wisdom of correction, and the satisfaction of a job well done. He taught me the value of prayer. He demonstrated unshakable faith. We showed me how to serve. My father unconditionally put his family first and modeled unceasing selflessness.
That is my father…
So as I stoop to place this fulcrum, I am confident that it will be strong and true because I know the strength and wisdom of my own father and the God to which he has always pointed me. And as I rise from the grass and place my hands upon the great pillar of fatherhood and push down with all my might… I am boy no longer.
