My father died last April. Had he lived, he would have celebrated his 92nd birthday this coming week.
About three years ago, when Dad was 88, he made some disparaging comments about his life to me. He was old, relatively immobile, unable to play golf anymore, confined mostly to his house in Florida. He was unhappy with his life and felt he hadn’t accomplished much.
About three years ago, when Dad was 88, he made some disparaging comments about his life to me. He was old, relatively immobile, unable to play golf anymore, confined mostly to his house in Florida. He was unhappy with his life and felt he hadn’t accomplished much.
Many of us are blind to the impact we have on others and on the world. Often, when we are in the trenches and fighting the battles of daily life, we lose sight of our gains, of the good we have contributed to the world. We keep our heads down, dealing with the problems of daily living, trying to do battle, and so are unable to see the big picture of our life. Sometimes, too, we make enormous mistakes that haunt us the rest of our days.
After listening to him, I decided to send my father an email reminding him of his own accomplishments. I can’t find that letter in my saved documents, but I well remember the gist of that letter.
I reminded my father that he was born into poverty in Pennsylvania in 1925. His father was a carpenter who had left school at an early age to help support his family. His mother was the daughter of a Scots-Irish immigrant.
Life was often a struggle for my dad, his brother, and my parents. During the Depression, they lived for a time in a house with a dirt floor in a Pennsylvania winter. Once when my grandfather worked for a while in an ice cream plant he would wake his wife and boys in the middle of the night to eat the ice cream he was allowed to bring home. They had no refrigerator, which meant eating the ice cream before it melted.
Yet as I wrote Dad, he and his brother Russ had both clawed their way beyond these circumstances of poverty. My dad delivered newspapers, studied hard in school, earned his Eagle Scout badge, and won a scholarship to Penn State in forestry. After one year at Penn, he entered the US Army and served in Italy fighting against the Germans. Once the Allies had won that theater of war, the Army slated to participate in the invasion of Japan. He and tens of thousands of his comrades were headed East when Japan surrendered.
After his discharge, my father entered Pennsylvania’s Westminster College on the GI bill, married my mom, completed his college education, and entered Temple Medical School in Philadelphia. He graduated, served an internship in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and moved his growing family to Boonville, North Carolina, in the mid-fifties, where he began a life-long career in family medicine.
Back then, family physicians also delivered babies. I reminded my father that he had brought over six hundred human beings into the world and that many of them were cognizant of the role he had played. I reminded him, too, of how hard he had worked all those years as a physician, laboring sixty and seventy hour weeks in Boonville. I reminded him of his contributions to the community through his efforts at the Methodist Church, his work for the Lions Club, his influence in founding a Boonville arts celebration.
Later, my father practiced medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Stuart, Florida, Traveler’s Rest, South Carolina, and Gainesville, Florida. He was a good physician who was loved by his patients.
In addition to his medical practice, Dad was a skilled amateur painter and near the end of his life published several books.
As a dad, my father was stern with his children. He was what we now think of as a stereotypical 1950s father, bringing home the money, working hard on projects about the house, and serving as backup to my mother in cases of discipline. Given his own upbringing—his dad was not nearly so engaged—Dad did a stellar job.
When I think of my father, I think of the American Dream. I think of a boy who came out of poverty, who served his country, who yanked himself up by the bootstraps through dint of ambition and perseverance to a life that in most ways would be judged a tremendous success. Dad wasn’t perfect. Like all human beings, he made mistakes and was flawed. The older I grow, and the more I see of my own faults, the more I forgive him his foibles and shortcomings.
The gifts he passed on to his children included the value of hard work, the cost of ambition, and a love for family. By his example he taught us these virtues.
God bless you, Dad, and rest in peace. You earned it.
After listening to him, I decided to send my father an email reminding him of his own accomplishments. I can’t find that letter in my saved documents, but I well remember the gist of that letter.
I reminded my father that he was born into poverty in Pennsylvania in 1925. His father was a carpenter who had left school at an early age to help support his family. His mother was the daughter of a Scots-Irish immigrant.
Life was often a struggle for my dad, his brother, and my parents. During the Depression, they lived for a time in a house with a dirt floor in a Pennsylvania winter. Once when my grandfather worked for a while in an ice cream plant he would wake his wife and boys in the middle of the night to eat the ice cream he was allowed to bring home. They had no refrigerator, which meant eating the ice cream before it melted.
Yet as I wrote Dad, he and his brother Russ had both clawed their way beyond these circumstances of poverty. My dad delivered newspapers, studied hard in school, earned his Eagle Scout badge, and won a scholarship to Penn State in forestry. After one year at Penn, he entered the US Army and served in Italy fighting against the Germans. Once the Allies had won that theater of war, the Army slated to participate in the invasion of Japan. He and tens of thousands of his comrades were headed East when Japan surrendered.
After his discharge, my father entered Pennsylvania’s Westminster College on the GI bill, married my mom, completed his college education, and entered Temple Medical School in Philadelphia. He graduated, served an internship in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and moved his growing family to Boonville, North Carolina, in the mid-fifties, where he began a life-long career in family medicine.
Back then, family physicians also delivered babies. I reminded my father that he had brought over six hundred human beings into the world and that many of them were cognizant of the role he had played. I reminded him, too, of how hard he had worked all those years as a physician, laboring sixty and seventy hour weeks in Boonville. I reminded him of his contributions to the community through his efforts at the Methodist Church, his work for the Lions Club, his influence in founding a Boonville arts celebration.
Later, my father practiced medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Stuart, Florida, Traveler’s Rest, South Carolina, and Gainesville, Florida. He was a good physician who was loved by his patients.
In addition to his medical practice, Dad was a skilled amateur painter and near the end of his life published several books.
As a dad, my father was stern with his children. He was what we now think of as a stereotypical 1950s father, bringing home the money, working hard on projects about the house, and serving as backup to my mother in cases of discipline. Given his own upbringing—his dad was not nearly so engaged—Dad did a stellar job.
When I think of my father, I think of the American Dream. I think of a boy who came out of poverty, who served his country, who yanked himself up by the bootstraps through dint of ambition and perseverance to a life that in most ways would be judged a tremendous success. Dad wasn’t perfect. Like all human beings, he made mistakes and was flawed. The older I grow, and the more I see of my own faults, the more I forgive him his foibles and shortcomings.
The gifts he passed on to his children included the value of hard work, the cost of ambition, and a love for family. By his example he taught us these virtues.
God bless you, Dad, and rest in peace. You earned it.