Lessons My Father Taught Me

One day this past Fall I dreamed of my father. It was a very real dream and lingered long into the day.

I was in high school and it was winter. One of my parents would always rise at 4:00 am to start their work day. This particular morning was dark and very early. A heavy snow had fallen during the night. My dad woke me to tell me to get dressed. I had a job shoveling the Regina Maria Retreat House property.

I got dressed—warm clothes, boots, hats and gloves. I was not pampered. Neither parent would have expected anything less of me that to get up long before daybreak, dress, shovel the city block then go to school.

I walked the 15 minutes to the house—trudging through unshoveled snow very deep snow. I let myself in, choked the snow blower, got it out and began the slow task of ploughing out their long drive, then four very long sidewalks.

The Retreat House occupied a full city block. The nuns paid be $1.50 an hour to work for them.

Maybe I finished. Maybe the nuns fed me some breakfast. That I don't remember. What I do remember is heading to school—Mount Assumption Institute--which was across the street.

I do not remember the school day, but I do remember returning to the Retreat House to finish the job after classes ended—four sidewalks, a huge driveway and several smaller walk ways.

That was my dream. It was as I had relived the entire day. I could feel the wet snow. I could see my father and I could hear him.

And then I woke up.

I was very far from home, very far from MAI, and very far from all that was familiar from those years long, long ago.

And I was sad, and the sadness stayed with me all day long. I found myself mourning my parents once again,found myself missing them, found myself feeling lonely and alone.

I was in Mexico City on the morning of that dream and happened to be heading to CAFEMIN. I shared the dream with my friend Sister Mirian who's always been my CAFEMIN contact and who, over all these months, has become my friend.

“A dream like that, Dan, when you see loved ones who died, means you know they're OK.”

I thought that rather different coming from a Catholic nun, but I wasn't surprised that she'd given me this information. I've felt all along that they are OK, and that has always made their passing a bit easier.

We parted, and then I cried, and then I was OK. The sadness lifted. It was just one of those temporary blips in life that remind us of our humanness.

The whole dream got me thinking of the things my father taught me and the things that have stayed with me all my life.

My father taught me to obey him, but rarely in a mean way. How many overly-enabled children today would get up at 4:00 am, not question the early rising, shovel an entire city block, go to school then finish the job? There are those who do, of course, but I imagine more would refuse the task.

And thinking of that dark winter morning, I thought of how my father reacted to weather. When he was in World War 2 he was fortunate to live in Honolulu. That forever altered the way he viewed the North Country. Somehow he convinced my mother to move the family to Florida. No more winter's for him!

Unfortunately, my mother was unable to tolerate the brutal Florida summers and within two years they moved back to New York.

Did he he miss those warm days, those snowless winters, that “forever summer” life he'd come to love? I don't know because I never thought to ask him and he never complained about being back in the north. I think he was like most men of his generation. They'd been to war, they saw things no human should have to see, they survived, came home, married and jumpstarted their old life. Somehow they compartmentalized the past and simply moved forward.

Later in life, as a young teacher, something happened to my car. I didn't have a lot of money, but my dad reminded me that I had a job and that the money I earned would pay for the repairs. “Be grateful,” he told me, “that you have a job to pay for these things.”

“Be grateful....” I can not tell you how many times in my life I have used that counsel when life has thrown me a financial curveball—times I needed a new roof, or a major car repair or whatever. I always had a job that would pay for those things, even if it took a year to do so.

What a valuable lesson!

There is much I learned from my dad—things both big and small. Things like learning to swim or ride a bike or hit a baseball. He taught me to ski and bowl. He taught me that, no matter whether I needed to or not, when I had access to a bathroom I should always use it. Oh, yes...thanks, Dad! I have never forgotten that lesson and it's come in handy hundreds of times.

For the most part my dad was a kind, quiet, non-judgmental man and I wish, so wish, I'd had him longer in my life. I'm grateful I did have him until I was 45 and that he had a full life until the very end.

I'm grateful he did get back to Florida in his later years.

And I am most grateful for what he taught me about dying. I never once heard my dad complain about his cancer or his fatigue or the fact that he knew he was dying. He simply accepted it for what it was.

Dad died twenty years ago today. Can it be that long? My skin has regenerated itself three times since then. Life truly does move on.

Never a Christmas passes when I don't pause and think of that year. Something will always trigger a memory. There was a time when it was painful, but now I think of the precious gifts of friends who came forth that year, and especially of the two “angels in denim” who stayed with us through the entire time. And I always give thanks for that quiet time on that Christmas afternoon when Dad was lucid. “I love you,” I told him.

“And I love you.”

It was great to see him again, even if it was in a dream. If time could be reversed, and I had to opportunity to be awakened again by my dad to shovel out the Retreat House, I'd gladly do it. We never know how precious a moment can be until it's long passed.