Yesterday was July 4th. People were grilling various meat and meat products in their backyards, my neighbor was setting off possibly illegal fireworks, and the dominant theme in every fashion choice was red-white-and-blue. I like Independence Day. I enjoy the summer holiday atmosphere, baseball games, and the general party that goes with the day. I also enjoy living in America. Where else could you seriously consider the implications of the freedoms that our forefathers intended for our country while heading out to the local Hyundai dealers' “Sale-a-bration?” Really, does everything have to have some kind of blowout, once-in-a-lifetime, prices-were-never-lower kind of shameless hawking of goods and services? I just don't believe that this was the intention of the Declaration of Independence. If it was, it would be called the “Declaration of Super Savings,” or the “Declaration of Incredible Bargain Madness.” I'd really like to be independent of all this ridiculous selling and from people telling me that I simply must have whatever it is that they simply must sell.
July 4th has another significance for me that I've been doing a pretty good job of avoiding over the years. July 4, 1923 was the day my father was born. He would have been 88 years old yesterday. I would have continued to let this particular aspect of the day pass unnoticed but for a couple of things. On the first of the month, my wonderful friend, Micheal, wrote a beautiful tribute to his own father who passed away just two years ago. It was a moving account of saying goodbye and saying thank you. Secondly, Linda was in the process of cleaning things out of a closet yesterday that had been in there for maybe 20 years (it's amazing how stuff accumulates!). Part of that cleaning was going through old papers and photographs that my mother had stored over the years. I came face-to-face with my father again through photos and documents.
I never had the relationship with my father that others have been blessed to have. There were a number of reasons for that. Being raised an only child often means that the expectations placed on you are heavy. Being raised the only child of an alcoholic creates issues of another kind. There are memories of family that are good. There are others that I have chosen to compartmentalize and seal away, never to be seen again. There are some that cannot be entirely forgotten or put away. They are like old photographs that resurface every now and again, ready to be looked at and ready to bring back old feelings thought gone for good.
I have no intention of recounting any of those memories here. We all have ghosts and memories of the past that we face regularly. I'm just wondering what kind of memories my children will have of me when they consider their own childhood. I guess it's the concern of most fathers. What will be the lasting images and feelings we give our children to carry with them? It's something that I wonder more and more now that both my children have reached “grown-up” age and beyond.
I've done my best most of the time. I'm ashamed to say that there were times when I could have been better, sometimes much better, at being Dad. It seems that the older I get the more I remember the mistakes and the things I should have done. I wonder what impact those things are having and will continue to have on a son and daughter that deserved only the very best. How would things have been different? How could they have been better? Is it too late now to make that kind of difference?
There's no way to really know the answer to those questions. I can only do what I can with what I have in time, resources and opportunity. All three tend to decrease as the years increase, so the odds are not in my favor. Still, trying is all I have left.
If you're young enough that you don't have children as yet or if your children are young, remember this one thing: No one ever came to the end of their lives and said, “I wish I'd spent less time with my kids.”
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