Thoughts of Dad

I was driving on the highway the other day, and I got thinking about my Dad. He loved to drive highways. He and my mother would go for a long drive every weekend. The purpose was to get lost…then, with the assistance of maps, find their way home again. They would do this for hours on end, I discovered.

The more I thought about my dad, the more I remembered about the way he lived. He was silent and quite testy at home, but out in the community, he was the soul of helpfulness, kindness, courtesy and support. Everyone who knew him loved the way he was. I have frequently thought that my Dad, a man quite hostile to organized religion, lived his whole life as a Christian man should live it. His childhood in a poor and strict Presbyterian home in Scotland put him off religion for life. He always told me he was an atheist, but at the end of his life I learned that this was not true. He was just angry at religion for the way it impacted his life as a child.

So, not a believer, but in most ways, a Christian of the first order. It’s interesting to me that as I age, I become more like him in some ways. I am not an unbeliever, but I do believe that the lived life is far more important than correct beliefs. I am kind, thoughtful and loving at home, and more grumpy, judgmental and impatient with public life. Weird.

My Dad had an abiding interest in science, and although he had virtually no education, he learned all the time as much as he could about science. I remember him sitting in the car with my son and I, as we told him about a basic computer course that we were taking together. My Dad kept asking, “But how do they work?” Neither of us could explain that, because at the time, neither of us understood enough about it to be helpful. He was quite annoyed with us, because we couldn’t teach him something that he so desperately wanted to know. It’s ironic that now, all these decades later, my son, his grandson, is a computer programmer as well as a teacher, and has a deep and abiding interest in science, like his grandfather!

Over the years, as I have pondered my dad’s life, I have come to see the many ways that he influenced me, and the many ways that I am like him! From my mother I got a deep and abiding faith, and a model for patience, hope and persistence. From my Dad, I got the critique of faith over against the lived life of faith. I also got his sharp, and sometimes inappropriate, tongue!

My parents died in 1987 – Dad, and 1988 – Mother. At different times I feel their presence with me to this day. I thank them for giving me life, and for parenting me into the person I am. Not perfect, not even always good, but grateful and proud to be their son.