My father sleeps almost all the time now. In the final stages of his disease he spends
his time, I think, reliving the good times and anticipating better times, in
the world of his dreams.
On Monday mornings I sit beside him reliving the good times
and anticipating better times. This past
Monday I spent some of my “reliving time” thinking about the lessons I've learned
from my father (I call him Pop). I
thought Father’s Day would be a good time to share some of them.
The most recent lesson Pop attempted to teach me was how to
shoot pool. In his younger years, from what
my cousins told me, he was quite the pool shark. (Pop would never speak about such things when
I was growing up because “pool-sharking” wasn't one of the lessons he wanted me
to learn.) When times were hard his pool
stick put food on the table more than once; again, according to my cousins.
I’m afraid this lesson was wasted on me. I was never good at geometry and it is
evident when I attempt to line up a shot.
The last time we made the trek out to the garage to shoot a game Pop
used a walker to get there, could barely hold the stick, shook like a leaf and
still beat me handily. He was frustrated
because he thought I threw the game to make him feel better. By the way, when you shoot the best you can
and it still looks like you’re throwing the game, it’s a real blow to your
ego.
Almost all the other lessons are much older; some almost as
old as I am.
Pop taught me to hunt.
Hunting is an indirect way to learn patience and he seemed to want me to
master patience more than bagging game.
From “hunting lessons” I also learned to respect all God’s creatures. “If you shoot it, you eat it. If you won’t eat it, you don’t shoot
it.” So I shot squirrels, skinned them
and gave them to my mother who reluctantly, painstakingly turned them into
delicacies. I don’t hunt much these
days.
Pop taught me how to work.
For Pop, work was not an undesirable but necessary part of life; work
was a gift from God. God put the man and
woman in the garden to work it, take care of it and eat from it. So Pop put me in the garden to learn the
blessing of a hard day’s work, to toil over a task all day long, so at the end
of the day I could look at it and see the results, go to bed and sleep well…the
sleep of satisfaction. That lesson took
many years of repeated sessions.
Pop taught me to respect and care for all human beings no
matter their ethnicity, economic or social standing. Some of our neighbors were tenant farmers
living on someone else’s land (a modern version of sharecropping). Pop shared produce with them from our small
farm along with pies and cakes from my mother’s kitchen. He taught me that every living creature on
God’s good earth has intrinsic value.
Humans are created in God’s image and all of them are equal and equally
loved by their creator. This is a lesson
our world is slow in learning.
Pop taught me to love.
He taught me what love is. Of
course my mother participated in all these lessons as well (except shooting
pool). Pop taught me love not so much
with his words but with his work. He got
up before daylight and fed animals. Then
he went to his job (carpentry most of his life) and worked all day. Then he came home and fed animals again,
again in the dark. Only then did he sit
down with us to a good meal, provided by his own calloused hands. Somehow I never wondered if I was loved.
These are the kinds of things I think about on Mondays these
days. These lessons and others, many
others, I think about when I sit by Pop’s bedside, when I scramble an egg and
try to get him to eat a few bites, when I moisten his dry mouth, when I help my
sister bathe his frail body. These
lessons and others, many others, are the reasons my siblings and I do not
consider doing these things a burden.
Like all the other lessons he taught us, this final lesson, a lesson on
how to grieve well, is a gift.
