LoveUbecause … for Father’s Day

My father and I are two very different people – my son, daughter and I are  very different people. If we were not, I am not sure I could say that my father had been a good father to me and I, a good father to my children.

But it is not as simple as that, because when it comes down to the brass tacks,  the bricks and mortar  that comprise us as human beings and serve as a foundation on which we stand and live as human beings, we also couldn’t be more alike. And similarly, if that was not true, I honestly can say that I would have not been a good father to my children and my father, not a good parent to me.

My father is a complex man and, as my daughter once described me, I am apparently “complicated” too - “but in a good way”. Maybe it is because of their upbringing, the times that we live, but my children seem to have figured this out a lot earlier in life than I did, when it came to my own father.

Don’t misunderstand and think that  “complex” is not meant “in a good way” too, but growing up as a child and well into late adolescence and perhaps even early adulthood, the infallibility of my father stood, for the most part, fairly firm in my mind.  “Complex” was not  really a word that I would have associated him with.

It was pretty straightforward. My father always knew what to do, knew the answers to my questions and displayed a healthy intellect, similar prowess as an athlete, was “fixer and mender” of all things electronic and mechanical and was honest, almost to a fault. To me it was simple - my father was always good at what he did and  … he was always right!

Most of all he was never afraid to demonstrate any of it. Before he retired, he worked as a very well respected engineer and though I know respected for his intelligence  and wealth of experience and knowledge he brought to his job, he was just as well looked upon for his honesty, integrity, judgement and treatment of others, even though perhaps begrudgingly by some who he stood up too, when he believed he was right and they were not! He never shirked from telling people what he thought of them or what he considered their bad ideas, even when politically it might have been better to coddle them and agree. But judging from the huge attendance at his retirement dinner, it is also obvious that he impressed and stood up for those who were worth standing up for and they appreciated it. When dinner was finished a huge cake was wheeled into the room, blazing with sparklers, to the strains of Frank Sinatra singing “I Did It My Way” - and in no uncertain terms, they meant it! I don’t think I have ever been so proud of my father!

But it was in other small ways he demonstrated things that he believed in to us as children. I remember, when I was perhaps 10 or 11, one particular Saturday morning trip to the market. My mother was walking beside us with a large basket of strawberries. Two young men strolled by and cheekily pinched a couple of berries from the basket and took off at a run into the crowd. To their surprise, my father, a very fit rugby player, chased them both down, gave them a piece of his mind and demanded an apology – which, nervously panting, as they tried to catch their breath from the chase, they gave!

It is not that we didn’t ever disagree. In fact, as teenagers, our home was well known by my friends and my sister’s friends as a place where dinnertime discussions could be as deliciously exotic, and sometimes as spicy, as the home cooking that my mother is well noted for. Not many topics were considered out of bounds and excited, heated discussions were not uncommon. My father often surreptitiously played  “devil’s advocate”, just for the fun of it I suspect, but in doing so demonstrated that every argument can have two sides with legitimately opposing view points.

Discussions or not, at that age  I still just didn’t think in similar terms of my father, as my daughter has of me, so thinking of him as “complex” or “complicated” didn’t come to me until a much later age, when I really got to know him better as an adult .

It is a generational thing, I suppose, where boundaries were different, “traditional” models of bringing up children were stretched, by me, into something different than I was familiar with  from my childhood, as I was a “stay-at-home” Dad - tending to my children from infants to young adults, while modestly contributing to our family income, with my writing, art, music and acting.

My father did a lot of things with us –  canoeing, camping going to the cottage – but as a stay-at-home parent I had the luxury of spending more time with my children than my father did with me and my sisters, so as children they probably figured me out a little more quickly, simply based on a greater amount of time spent together during those formative years.

Circumstance dictates that every generation is different, in any event. My father was a refugee from the war in Europe, escaping from the Nazis in Austria to England, where he grew from a non-English speaking schoolboy into an Oxford educated engineer. But it wasn’t really until recently, thinking about Father’s Day, that it came to me how different an upbringing he had, as opposed to mine and my children. During many of those formative years, when he grew from child to adolescent, his father was with the British Army, training and participating in the war. Sadly, it was four years with, I suspect, much lost in terms of his own father and son relationship.

But though steadfast in his ways and principals, change and adaptability have been no stranger to my father.  Moving from Austria to England would not be the only time he pulled up roots and moved to another country.

I recall turning 35 and thinking that this was the age that my parents decided to immigrate to Canada. I found myself, similarly with a young family, thinking how brave that was as they packed a minimal amount of belongings into old tea chests and had them shipped by boat to a new country that they had not even visited before. Leaving everything they had come to know as their home could not have been easy. And making arrangements for his parents to follow must have only added to the stress.  But though we left with only a few suitcases, the tea chests to arrive later, it was put to us as children as an adventure – one that we embraced and simply enjoyed! My father, the consummate planner, had a new job waiting and as individuals, and a family, we have been fortunate to grow and flourish here. I believe it was one of the best and most courageous decisions my father and mother ever made, as it provided us with unimaginable opportunity to be who we wanted and hopefully to be seen as having made  worthwhile contributions back in gratitude. For that I will always be thankful!

It would be dishonest to leave anyone with the impression that we were some kind of “Leave It To Beaver”, 1950’s, 60 ish  TV  family led by a “Ward Cleveresque” father. My father was known to raise his voice to us when we didn’t measure up, or did something that he didn’t think particularly clever. Excellence was expected and, in my view, perhaps not praised as much as it could have been when achieved. But then I am sure there is a list that my children could readily produce that would rival anything I could say about my father’s parenting style being less than perfect. After all we are all only human – and there is a  valuable lessons for our children to be learned from that.

Well I have grown up a lot since seeing my father as less dimensional then he really is. Yes, I learned he is complex - how he likes art, music and dance, apparently he even wrote a poem or two in his time. He is fallible, right often, but sometimes wrong. We don’t always agree, but he is always the first person I call when I need advice. He is there to support me and help me when I need him most. He is honest and principled and most importantly taught me to be an individual and “my own person” who, when it counts, always strives to do his best  - I hope I have shown my children the same.

What I also know is that  he used the tools that he was provided with to be the best father he knew how – he is just that kind of person, not demanding anything less from himself than he would hope for from another. I know he always loved me because he demonstrated that in so many ways as we grew up. As we have both grown older he says it a lot more now and I like that too. So here’s back at you, Pa … I love you … just in case anyone doesn’t know!

Happy Father’s Day …  and thanks!

“A” the “O” in LVE!

Share the LVE! Post or e-mail this page!   

Posted in About Love and Life, Holiday and Seasonal
Tags: child, family, Father's Day, grand children, holiday, legacy, life, parent, values