Dad

I’ve talked about dad often on the blog, and with today being Father’s Day, I tried to figure out what else I could say, that I haven’t already said.  I mulled on this most of yesterday, had some thoughts, tossed them, mulled some more, and this morning I’m still not sure so here’s some of those thoughts from yesterday.

Dad didn’t do Father’s Day. <- and people wonder why I’m not the mushy type…

Why dad didn’t do Father’s Day had many reasons.

He couldn’t see the need for a day to be set aside to honor him.

He didn’t want presents, he had everything he needed.

He didn’t want us to be good only on that day, he wanted us to be good 365 days of the year.

He was too busy on Sundays during the summer;

• growing our fruits and vegetables (vegetarian),
• maintaining the yards,
• fixing the cars if they needed maintenance,
• fixing the house (or office) if something needed doing,
• and, doing the above while patiently trying to teach us how to do it, too,
• taking care of whatever patient showed up sick (or hurt),
• doing any needed hospital or nursing home visits, usually with me in tow,
• taking phone calls from a patient, which usually required coming in all the way from the garden.

Dad never was one to sit and do nothing, even in retirement, he spent most of his time at home out in the garden.

One of my fondest memories is from a Sunday in late summer – long after he’d retired.  Mom had been away for several weeks by then visiting one of her relatives overseas.  I decided to go see how dad was faring, I didn’t call, just drove to see him because I knew he’d be home.  I walked into the house, spotless as usual, despite mom being gone for weeks.  I walked into the kitchen and saw dad putting freshly canned peaches on the cutting board to cool.  Then he cooked me dinner, perfectly cooked, perfectly timed, perfectly delicious.  Then we did the dishes.

He was a great man and could do anything.