Father’s Day always begs the question of what gift, however humble, to buy the man who bears the worthy title of dad.
As a teenager, who had not yet reached her 16th birthday, I didn’t think much of my dad. He was too old to be cool. All he ever seemed to want to do, was fish. Fishing was fine when I was a kid, but now that I was a teenager, I had bigger fish to fry, so to speak.
My dad, wherever he was going, drove far too slowly for me. In fact, when we would be driving down some country road, which was pretty much always, he wanted to go really slow so he could enjoy looking at the flowers that painted the roadside ditches with huge splashes of color. He would point them out to me; Indian Paintbrushes, brown-eyed Susans, wild roses, bluebells and buttercups.
Really, how boring, I would think. I would have tuned him out and tuned myself into some rock and roll music, if only we had had a radio in that old ’49 Chev, but of course, we didn’t.
Perhaps it was because we had no radio, we sang in the car. My dad sang lots. War songs, Scottish ballots and old westerns. He knew all the words and pretty soon I did too.
Even though I was convinced I was much, much smarter than my father, I did think he should be remembered on Father’s Day with some sort of gift, because that’s what people, even teenagers who were wise in unexplained ways such as I, did. So I saved and saved and saved, finally accumulating the grand total of 50 cents. I put it away carefully.
But, it turned out that the money never did get spent on a Father’s Day gift because my dad died.
He died when the roadside ditches were not yet softened and made splendid by the reckless abandon of delicate pink roses. He died when the air was heavy with the scent of lilacs and dancing green leaves brought life to trees that had been chilled and cold for far too long.
I knew my father for barely 15 years, but every year when Father’s Day comes around, I think about him.
And how smart he was.
He knew a pickle jar filled with a bouquet of fresh green leaves is a classy way to decorate a kitchen.
He knew enough to carry his fishing rod with him at all times, and interrupt his workday without question if he should come across a fishing hole with or without promise.
He knew enough to slow down and enjoy wild things like flowers and rivers and creeks and sure-footed creatures of the forest that roam free.
And, somewhere in his heart, he must have been wise enough to know that he could raise a kid such as me as a single dad, even though I certainly didn’t come with an instruction manual attached.
But, I wonder if he had any idea, that many, many years later, that the child who was me would remember driving down country roads with her dad far too slowly, singing those old songs and marveling at the beauty of the flowers, because, after all, we had all the time in the world.
And I wonder if he knew, that in the short, short time he was with me, he taught me so much.
I hope so!
— On The Other Side