Happy Birthday, Dad

Today would be my father's 80th birthday. He passed away on April 7, 2001, having just reached 73.

A strange hodge-podge of emotions comes bubbling up when I think of my father. His presence in my life was marked by much pain, confusion, and awkwardness. And yet in many ways, many of the deep, true elements of my life experiences can be traced back to our relationship.

My father was an alcoholic, and my parents were divorced when I was small. Even before they divorced, my father lived apart from us for long stretches as he struggled to support our family as a teacher, often boarding during the week and returning home only on weekends. Somehow I remember being excited to see him when he was home, but there were many layers of reality that I completely did not understand. All I knew when my parents divorced was that something that was meant to hold up my life shattered into thousands of irreparable pieces.

I blamed my father, and began to hate him. I knew that when he drank, he became very strange, but even when he was sober, his mental health was rather fragile. His social skills were poor, and his self-concept was one of complete failure. He had failed everyone he cared about and felt unable to succeed at anything important to him.

When I was about 19 years old, I experienced a grace of forgiveness. This was rooted in another great grace of healing in my own life, which I wrote about here. I suddenly realized that my father had not intentionally hurt me, and in fact, he had always attempted to make up for specific hurts by apologizing and telling me he loved me. I realized that I could forgive him, and I did. As a result, my life began to heal.

I can look back now and see my father through such different eyes. He was very committed to AA, even though he went in and out of sobriety throughout his life. I know his commitment to the principles and practices of AA was why he bothered to try to make amends to me. Even though I never saw my father as much of a spiritual or religious example, I can see now that his humbling himself to make amends had an impact on my own desire to seek out and act on truth. He did not feel comfortable enough among "normal" people to attend church regularly, but he always told me he prayed the Our Father (well, he was Protestant, so he said "The Lord's Prayer") daily.

He had a great love for music, especially Big Band and swing music, which of course came back into vogue before he passed away. When he knew he would eventually succumb to his cancer, he packed up his extensive collection of pristine and highly organized band music (that he had collected when it was brand new) and donated it to a local high school which had started a swing band. The band director was beyond ecstatic. He estimated the music to be worth over $40,000. The school honored my father with a concert of the music for which they asked him to be guest conductor, which I know was more than a dream come true for my father, who had always wanted to start his own band. This kind of "giving everything and thinking it to be nothing" of my father's is a legacy I am deeply proud of.

After he passed away, I received all of his personal affects, including his photo albums. He had only three of them with which he summarized his whole life. These photos started with his childhood and captured his love for the Old West, Indians, and big band stars. In the middle one, I found mostly family pictures, pictures I or a sibling drew, birthday cards and other mementos, especially around the time of his divorce. The last album was filled with pictures from my wedding, where I was privileged to have him give me away, and which he graciously and unexpectedly paid for.

A hodge-podge of emotions. But strong evidence of the grace of Christ, our Redeemer.