There are two additional men in my children's lives who do fill the role of father figure, my father, and my husband Blake. My Dad lives about three hours away so we don't see him very often, though we see each other as much as possible. He and my second son Taylor love to dive into deep philosophical discussions and although my atheist son and my IFB pastor father wouldn't agree on just about anything Biblically, they have a mutual respect that enables them to discuss all things Bible without anyone coming to tears or to blows. My husband Blake brought with him into our marriage lots of love, compassion, grace, kindness, laid back expectations, and a proclivity to get our mutual children out of their comfort zone and out into the world for new experiences. He has been just what we all needed, and has become friends with my children and someone who they have come to respect and love.
But this post is about my Dad. My Father, a man who makes the term "patriarch" palatable.
My Dad, the most amazing, flawed, and wonderful man that any girl could have for a Dad. Yes, I include flawed as a good thing. Who wants a perfect parent? I don't, and Lord knows that I will never be a perfect parent. My father did his best, and his best was what I remember most and love. His best was, and is, more than enough.
My father is one of six children, born into poverty at home, he was number five and the youngest son. His mom was one of fourteen and had married my grandfather when she was still a young girl, I believe she was 14 or so herself? Maybe fifteen, but not much older. They lived on the southwestern part of PA and her husband worked in the steel mill. Everyone in that area worked either at the mill or in the coal mines. There was nothing else. No one went to college, few graduated high school. It wasn't necessary. You grew up, you worked in the mill, you continued to live in poverty or paycheck to paycheck. That was life. My grandfather was a hard man. He had an apartment in the city where he worked and stayed there five days a week, sometimes longer, only coming home to he shack where his wife and children lived when he had to. My grandmother lived the life of a single parent for the most part as my father grew up. My dad and his brother often hunted for their supper, rabbits or squirrels otherwise there wasn't much meat to be had. My dad had one toy, a stuffed bear, and one book. They didn't have running water and had an outhouse for a toilet. The shacks they lived in were drafty, always neat as a pin due to my grandmother's diligence, and sometimes had dirt floor or clapboards. This was in the late 1940's through the fifties/sixties.
My grandmother didn't work outside of the home, this was unheard of. My grandmother, a few years before she passed away and before the dementia took over most of her mental faculties, told me that her husband had gotten an std that she had to be treated for during the time that he worked at the mill and was away from home. She was quite pissed about that, even many years after the fact and the annoyance that she had for needing to be treated as well was still palpable as she related this to me. My grandmother was basically mother and father for my Dad, he had no good role model to show what a kind, loving father looked like. He had his mom, a stalwart little lady who did her best with absolutely nothing to care for her brood.
My father was, and is, a quiet unassuming man. He joined the Army after he graduated from high school and just days after he had joined he got his draft notice. Vietnam was starting to rev into high gear. He was dating my mother and I don't know if they were engaged at this time or not, but they did marry in May of 66. My mom came from a different type of family, the only similarity being that her father also worked in the steel mill. But her family was close, there were three children, my mother being the oldest, and my mother grew up with her father being there for her, her grandparents living just down the road or across the road all of her life. They never had a lot of money, but they had a lot of love. My mother's father was a man dedicated to his family, he had built their home with his wife as his fellow construction worker. He had put aside his dreams of leaving rural West Virginia to become a doctor to stay home and care for his family. He became a father figure and good friend to my dad. They had so many great times together while my papaw was alive.
My father worked in computers when he got out of the army, but moved back to western PA after having been stationed in California with his new bride. There's a picture of him somewhere in one of those rooms with the huge reel to reel computers lining the walls and my dad hard at work fixing one. He was there for several years during which time he became involved in his local church and became a christian. My sister was born and my Dad found that he loved being a father.
He wanted to go into the ministry, feeling that God had called him to be a pastor. Now this was a man who had a hard time talking to people he knew, much less speaking to total strangers. He enrolled in college in Lynchburg VA. His parents didn't understand why he would go to college. So unnecessary, they didn't get it. They didn't understand his new found faith either. My father was not brought up with any sort of faith background.
I was born while my Dad was at Liberty and a few years later we moved to Maine where my Dad was the associate pastor of a small church in Monmouth, then they moved the church to Winthrop. We lived there for almost seven years. I loved living in Maine. I loved my Daddy. My mom always worked, at least part time, and went to full time once I started school.
My kindergarten year of school, in 1980, something big happened. Our local sheriff (who was also our neighbor) came in with some local township officials and put a notice on the door of our small school that operations were to cease and desist immediately. They warned my dad and the pastor and all of the teachers that the school was operating illegally (there were no laws protecting religious schools or homeschoolers at the time) and that they would be facing arrest if they continued operating. My father sat me and my older sister down with my mother at the dinner table, explained as best as he could what was happening and that he and the pastor had banded together with other churches to fight this legally. They told us what to do if the sheriff came to arrest him and my mother. Who to call, and where we would stay, and what to say and not say. Now this is heavy and scary stuff for a five year old. It also seemed contradictory to my parents insistence of obedience to those in authority. My father explained that sometimes man's laws aren't just, and when that was the case, it was the right thing to do to fight to change those laws. Over a year later, and after taking their case to the state supreme court (they lost on the local levels) they won and protections were put into place for religious schools and homeschooling families in the state of Maine. This landmark case had a ripple effect across the nation, making way for other states to follow suit.
This event at such a young age imprinted itself on me and how I grew more than almost any other single experience. I admired my father for taking a stand, and I still do. He's the man. He taught me as I grew to question everything and everyone. He didn't mean to do that exactly I don't think, but he did.
In Church and school, I found it oppressive, and repressive. The IFB church I grew up in was not liberating or full of grace. It was full of judgments and hypocrisy. There were some good people there and good experiences, but a lot of it was awful and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. My parents still attend and are involved in their IFB church. That's fine, that's their thing, they love their church and feel fulfilled there. My father in all things, did his best to model Christ for me. I never saw Christ in my Pastors, I saw Him in my Dad.
In the IFB, women have very specific gender roles. Wife, mother, possibly nurse, church secretary, or teacher is all that they do. Despite this environment of women having very set gender specific roles, my Dad taught me how to change a tire, change my oil, repair windows, taught me to measure twice and cut once for carpentry projects, supported my mother working outside of the home and taking college courses, gave me a love of power tools and yard work, insisted I get a job at 16, and instilled in me a protestant work ethic that I am forever grateful for. He wanted me to never have to depend upon a man. He taught me how to be a feminist. He'd balk at that, but he did. Yes Dad, you taught me that I can do anything I set my mind to and have a talent for. ANYTHING. You believed in me when I didn't, and had faith that God had a greater plan for me always, even if you didn't understand what the heck I was doing or why. You allowed me to ask you a million questions as a child and teen, and always took the time to answer me.
In church and school it was expected that girls be chaste, modest, and could go to college but really marriage was the goal, not career. Women were to be submissive (read subservient), but my mother was not subservient. My mother is submissive and is proud of that. But my father is not oppressive and his wife, my mom is his partner and has an equal voice in everything. I appreciate the love, the adoration, that my father has for my mother, his wife of nearly fifty years.
My parents helped to send my sister to college, and she is a christian school teacher. She did find a husband at college, but that was never the goal put to her by my father. He wanted her to get an education in something she loved doing.
I was the difficult child. I put up with church, and christian school, but I was counting down the days until I could escape. And I proceeded to make some really awful life decisions as an adult and also make some really great ones. But through it all, my father loves me. That may not seem like a big deal, but remember, my dad did not grow up with a father who showed love. He grew up with an emotionally distant, and abusive in many respects, father. My Dad told me once that he never heard his father tell him that he loved him. That breaks my heart for my Dad. He deserved to be loved, to be told how amazing he is, how smart he is, how talented he is. But he never heard that. I did. I heard that. I still hear that today, thank you Daddy. When I was younger he sometimes had a hard time showing this, but he did his best, and as I grew older and understood more of where he came from, I understood and appreciated every little effort he made to be a good Dad.
My dad doesn't say, "I love you" a lot. It's not his thing. His love language is acts of service. I'm the same way. When my dad comes to visit, he fixes something at my house. Every time. Without fail. I don't even ask. He just does. He wants to. Every time he hangs a curtain, changes a spark plug, paints a wall, he says, "I love you kiddo". I have so many "I love yous" in my home and in my life. His way of saying "I love you" lasts longer than words.
My father, to this day, is an educator and has been a school administrator since 1980. He's in his seventies now, but is still going strong. He is the principal of a Christian school in Hanover PA now. I've tried to convince my mom that she and dad should retire, but they will have none of that. It's not a part of who they are.
Dad, I love you, I love all of the lessons that you taught me. I love how you stepped in to help me with my boys and my daughter as they grew and to be a steady man in their lives. I love how you have laughed with me in times of joy, and held me close when my world was crashing down around me. We have both made mistakes along the way and have regrets, but having you as a Dad makes me such a blessed daughter. Thank you Dad, for being you.
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