Sunday morning ministers across the nation will mount their pulpits to address the fathers in attendance.  They will encourage them to assume or continue to fill their leadership roles in the family.  They will remind them that they are the heads of their respective households, the spiritual guardians and the providers of all necessities—and that they best see to it they fill these God-given roles.

Have you noticed the difference between that message and the one that’s spread on Mother’s Day?  Where mothers are applauded for what they do, fathers are often lamented for what they don’t.  Although that message probably does apply to a select few, most of us are blessed with dads who get it and are doing the best they can to meet all the parental requirements—and usually  managing to do it in their own unique way.  So, in recognition of the upcoming recognition, I’d like to ask for your momentary indulgence.  If I may, I’d like to introduce you to my dad—a man everyone knew as the quintessential undertaker but also a man who often took that “unique” thing to a whole new level (including, but certainly not limited to, making the office secretary promise she’d tell us we had to play Sinatra’s version of “My Way” at his funeral).  And someone I miss more and more every day.

To the best of my recollection, Dad had three hobbies:  working, flying, and price shopping for gas.  That last one did, on occasion, result in us being stranded since a few pennies could be saved if we just made it to fill-in-the-blank station.  One such time was on a country road in the middle of nowhere coming back from the committal service of my aunt’s father.  The needle had dropped far below E but he drove right passed the only station between us and town because he’d seen a lower price somewhere else. If not for the kindness of a nearby farmer, we’d probably still be sitting on the side of the road.

His love of flying was a practice not necessarily confined to airplanes.  Once he took his 1983 Datsun (1983 because any car worth having had to be at least 10 years old and have 100,000 miles on it) to the mechanic, complaining of a weird noise coming from the engine, a noise the mechanic never heard . . . until he let Dad drive.  He came back assuring the others at the shop that my dad was right.  You started hearing it up around 80.

I’m sure there were many times he cried in his life, but I only saw three—four if you count when he took us to see “Blazing Saddles” (after which he immediately apologized for having done so . . . with tears of laughter still streaming down his cheeks).  The first was over a cat we owned that managed to dart in front of the wrong car after church one morning.  We lived right across the street from a rather large congregation and the person probably never even knew they hit her.  One of the members offered to provide a name but Dad didn’t want to know.  He was afraid it would change how he felt about someone who was probably a friend and that friendship was more important than the knowledge.  The second time was at the death of a child—a child he didn’t know who died of sepsis.  He stood at her casket as he waited for her parents to arrive, touching up the make-up that covered the evidence of her illness and wiping away his tears with the ever present handkerchief that resided in his back pocket.  The third was at the death of his brother.

My father could converse with anyone about anything and for years I thought it was because he knew something about everything, but I finally figured out that wasn’t the case at all.  He just knew how to listen.  As a matter of fact, he spent an enormous amount of time doing just that—unless you disagreed with him on some point he deemed to be extremely important.  Then he would debate you into submission.  His ability to listen and his qualities as a professional and a person were attributes recognized by his peers—recognition that placed him in several positions of leadership on the state, national, and international level.  Not bad, my mother used to say, for someone from a small town in West Tennessee who stood in the corner at social gatherings with his arms folded behind his back.

Everyone’s well-being came before his own.  He was always last in line at church fellowship meals and the first one to grab a wet cloth and start wiping down the tables when everyone finished eating because, above all, he was a servant.  My father, like bazillions of other fathers in this world, was perfectly imperfect.  And despite all his eccentricities and imperfections, he loved us and sacrificed for us and was by far the greatest man I have ever known—and I’d bet every penny I have that almost any other child I asked would say the exact same thing about their dad.

So this Sunday, if you attend church and the minister starts discussing fatherly responsibilities and how every dad should strive diligently to fulfill them (implying that perhaps they are not already engaged in that practice), think of your own and know that, in spite of all their imperfections, they love or loved you unconditionally.  If you are blessed enough to still have them with you, realize it will not always be that way and honor them for the sacrifices they quietly and willingly make.  And if you no longer have your father physically in your life, be grateful he was yours for a while, and know that you are who you are in large part because of him.

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