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My two brothers and I lost our dad eight years ago this month.
He stepped into the next world on January 12, which happened to be Mom’s birthday. She had left us a mere seven months earlier.
Scott, Bruce, and I pictured Mom in heaven, looking up just in time to see her husband of 67 years arriving on the scene. She would sigh, “Can’t I have just one birthday in Paradise without you?” – a reflection of the fact that Dad could be a pretty controlling guy.
He had a legendary relationship to money.
Dad was a child of the Depression, and he sustained a lifelong anxiety about price tags. We used to say that Dad could squeeze a nickel so tightly he could make the Indian ride on the bison. He saved every piece of aluminum foil from our kitchen for something like four decades – and was thrilled when that added up to a whopping $5 from a local recycler.
Once, after our family attended church on a Sunday morning, Dad drove us home with the gas gauge plainly reading below empty. It immediately became clear to us that he was taking an off-the-beaten-path route. Dad knew that a certain gas station was selling fuel one cent cheaper per gallon than anywhere else.
Before we got there, however, we ran out of gas – right in front of another gasoline station.
Dad still walked the extra half mile to his original destination, came back with a gas can, then drove us on to the cheaper place so we could save that penny.
That was one of myriad stories we shared at his funeral. Dad died at the age of 96. He had been absolutely determined to see 100 candles on his birthday cake – one of his many single-minded obsessions. He didn’t quite make it, but he still managed to live a remarkable life.
Like a lot of Greatest Generation males, Dad did not excel at being vulnerable or emotionally available. Emotions were for other people.
He learned how to navigate social situations by resorting to humor.
I think most boys grow up desperately wanting to imitate something they admire in their father. From my earliest years, I hoped I could exhibit my dad’s dry wit. Just like Dad, to a fault, I tend to try to crack jokes or say something funny when it would clearly be wiser to remain graciously quiet in the presence of other people.
Scott, Bruce, and I agreed that at Dad’s funeral we wouldn’t romanticize his life. It wasn’t always easy being his sons.
All our lives we yearned to hear him say, “I am so proud of you. You did a great job. I love you. Nothing will ever change my mind about you.”
But he never did.
We know he felt that way about us for the simple reason that those are the things he told other people about us. He just couldn’t bring himself to say such things directly to us.
Years ago, a counselor shared with me the most significant thing I’ve ever learned about families.
She said, “When it came to love and grace and acceptance, your dad probably got a one from his father [his dad was indeed an emotionally distant perfectionist]. He gave you and your brothers, at best, a two. Now you have the opportunity to give your own children a seven. And maybe they can give the next generation an eight.”
None of us get perfect fathers on Earth. But, if we’re willing, we do get a perfect Father in heaven.
God, in his grace, took the raw material of our childhoods and transformed us into the men we have become. Our children will no doubt talk to their therapists about us. In fact, I’m quite sure that’s happening already.
That’s why it’s such great news that Scripture tells us, “Love covers over a multitude of sins” (I Peter 4:8).
And we all have a multitude of sins.
Dad would love to have sent out invitations to his 100th birthday party. But he is infinitely happier right now, rejoicing in the reality that God’s love is vast enough and deep enough to fill in all the gaps in his life.
And it’s vast enough to fill in all the gaps in our lives, too – and to satisfy our deepest yearnings for our true Father’s love.