Ruminating on Dads

Posted Sat Feb 5, 2011 in Ruminations

One of the people who comes to mind whenever I think about Dad is Ray Randolph. He wasn’t my dad, but he was a father-figure to me as well as a good friend. I think one of the things I’m going to have to do is go through my image archive and extract some of the pictures of Dad so I can post them. When he was young, he reminded me a bit of James Dean.

I’ve been in a long email conversation with SiL. He’s nearing the end of his enlistment and is thinking about what comes next. He asked for my thoughts, so I’m responding.

This was something I did with both Dad and FiL. When I was (a lot) younger, when I had things to decide I asked what they thought. I didn’t ask them what to do because that wasn’t their responsibility. But, I wanted to know what they thought about the issue and was curious about how they might respond in a similar situation.

At other times I just liked to listen to them tell stories about their lives. I learned a lot about life in the oral tradition through two men I respected. Neither of them had a lot of formal education, but both of them had more degrees from Life University than I can count. There is no teacher like the School of Hard Knocks, and both of them had seen plenty.

It seems the shoe is now on the other foot. Older Son and SiL ask what I think. I give them things to consider as they work through their own thoughts. This made me think about what I call “dad words” for lack of anything better. Yesterday morning I woke early (as usual), made coffee, and sat down to answer one of SiL’s emails. Lost in the immediacy of language, I wrote without thinking about much else. SiL is at one of those watershed divides in life where, cresting over the ridge, the landscape ahead opens up in both grandeur and confusion. It is a good place to pause, take in the scenery, and meditate on what comes next. He’s doing the right thing — thinking things through.

The exchange made me realize that sometimes I crave dad words, still, after almost six decades in this existence. There are times I want a different perspective from my own and Wife’s, both of us caught up in our limited views. I wish Dad had left me words in either written or spoken form so I could go back and listen to them again. He didn’t.

But, I will — I have. My kids and grandkids will have some of the stories and thoughts of their old man. I hope and pray they find consolation in them for the rest of their lives. But, that’s not for me to say or know… it’s an exercise of faith to leave the bread crumbs where they can find them.

Maybe one of the things that brought this to life was the changes in a couple of my best friends’ lives. About ten days ago, Doc died suddenly. His health wasn’t particularly good and hadn’t been for years. He lived on the edge, not really happy with it but not sufficiently broken to pass on. That changed rather suddenly and he lasted only a few days. My friend is dealing with the loss, but misses his dad and I so understand that feeling of loss.

Then, a few days later, the father of another of my best friends died suddenly. It was another of those unexpected turns of life. Things are decent, stable, but change in response to a relatively small impulse. The chaotic nature of the universe shifts and a life ends. He’s dealing as well as can be expected. But it’s hard. I can sense it. If i was closer (in space), I’d feel it as well.

My time approaches as well. I don’t know when, I just know that time marches inevitably forward and with it there are fewer days in my life than there were before. What I do know is that I want to do something for my kids so they will have some of what God gave me after my life ends. Although they won’t pass for the live conversation, they’ll have lots and lots of dad words left behind for them to work through. They’ll remember my voice and the bit of drawl I picked up from living in Missouri and Texas for so long.

My prayer is that those words will sustain them as they move forward through life, like those words I remember from Dad. It’s a good prayer and a good thought.

I’m thinking of my friends and family this morning. My prayers go out to the loss of my friends.