A Father's Blessing

 

And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias,

to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,

and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just;

to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

— Luke 1:17

 

I get a little glum this time of year. Father's Day is bittersweet. I adored my dad, but he died at age 64. When my middle-aged friends get exasperated with their aging dads, I get exasperated with them:

 

At least you still HAVE your dad, I feel like saying.

 

A while ago, I dropped a figurine that I'd had for many years, and I cried. Not because it was broken into 100 pieces, but because Dad wasn't here to fix it. He had the patience for tasks like that, while I tend to become . . . well . . . unglued at anything that takes more than five minutes.

 

He had his own language: "It's the dealybob on the thingamajig for a doodlywort." But we all knew what he meant.

 

He gave us a foretaste of what the Heavenly Father is like. One time, I was assigned to sweep the garage, and had done a lousy job. Dad came out to inspect, and instead of yelling, gently took the broom out of my hands, told me to watch, and finished the job. Within minutes, he'd taught me how to sweep a deck as clean as a Merchant Marine . . . which he had been, in World War II, another point of pride for us.

 

I was one of those mischievous little girls who often pushed the envelope and often said the wrong thing at the wrong time. Yet I can remember only once when he physically punished me. This "child abuse" consisted of being hit over the head with a sack of fresh bread.

 

We were in the kitchen, making a Mother's Day breakfast in bed, and I'd been bad. Of course I was far more shocked than hurt when the loaf conked my head, the plastic burst apart, and soft pieces of Wonder Bread went flying in every direction. I sank down to the floor, sobbing . . . but not because he had punished me. Because I had disappointed him that much.

 

He was one of those dads who could do endless things, and loved to share everything that he knew, felt and did with us.

 

The best thing about him is how he would say how much I was like my mother. What a compliment!

 

I see the same quality in my husband now. When the oldest was about six months old, he came in from somewhere. She was sitting there in her "pumpkin seat," and he whooshed in, unstrapped her, and started throwing her gently up in the air, and catching her.

 

At the first catch, she looked like herself.

 

At the second catch, she still did.

 

But on the third catch, and subsequent ones, her chins tucked in, and her eyes nearly disappeared in slits of laughter, and she was a carbon copy of . . . me.

 

It was just that way with Dad and me. He truly made me feel loved.

 

It goes beyond the grave, too. He even did it on his deathbed. On our minister's last visit, he told him: "Take care of SuSu. She's special."

 

Special?

 

Special!

 

What a blessing he left me with. I don't really feel special, but if Dad thought I was, I must really be.

 

Of course he knew the minister would tell me, and it would soften the blow of his death, and be something to cushion the blows of middle-age today . . . something to hold on to.

 

It doesn't even matter if it's true. What matters is that he thought so.

 

So on this Father's Day, I'm asking our Heavenly Father to do the same thing for Dad, for the same reason.

 

Take care of my father, Father, 'til the day we're sweeping the golden streets together with brooms made of the Breath of Life . . . because Dad was and is special to me, and more so each and every day. †