It should be no surprise to anyone here that my Dad loved to eat. So I suppose it is fitting that my first memory of him is waking up to the sounds and smells of him cooking corned beef hash and eggs before he went to work and us eating breakfast together, just the two of us. I was his little princess and he was and is my hero.
My Dad always made me believe that I could do anything in the world as long as I worked hard and never forgot the little guy. I knew every day of my life that he loved me no matter what and everything I ever did or accomplished was simply to make my parents proud of me. For I felt that if they who are such good human beings were proud of me then I must be doing okay.
My Dad taught me a great deal about being a good human being. My father also taught me that you must not compromise your principles for any reason whatsoever because if you do, you cease to control your destiny and you allow others to control you.
He taught me how to field strip an M-1 rifle and how to perform inspection arms without getting my thumb stuck in the bolt. He taught me that to disable an attacker you jam your thumbs into their eyes all the way to the elbow or jam your heel into the instep – that would take the wind out of their sails, by golly.
Dad always told me not to trust anyone, DTA he said, but I know he did trust. Instead I followed his example and trusted and loved unconditionally and was disappointed when that trust was broken, (however seldomly) and was not particularly eager to allow the same person another shot at me.
He was a walking treatise on the art of leadership and war. I found that much of the leadership style I evolved into as a military officer came from the years of relentless quotations from great military leaders I was often subject to. He taught me that life was often unfair but not to whine about it, just suck it up and carry on.
My Dad carried on by enjoying the real things in life – dedication to his family and as a master to a craft that too few appreciate. My father gained much joy from being a gunsmith and marksman, but I feel his greatest joy was the love he shared with his family, including not only his wife, children and grandchildren, but the uncles, aunts, in-laws and out-laws and dear, dear friends for whom he was simply “Tomus.”
My Dad could have taken on a lot of overtime to enrich us materially, but despite some gentle but unsuccessful prodding from my Mom, he usually passed on it in order to spend more time with those he loved. Don’t get me wrong – his penchant for adrenaline lives on in my brother and me – he loved being a cop. How many professions allow one to end stories with the words “Ram him” and the bad guy either caught or running down the street handcuffed to a six foot length of wrought iron railing. His storytelling capability was legendary and the ability to mine fresh stories may have been his favorite part of the job.
I always knew without a doubt how much my father loved me, but I never really knew the subtleties until the other day when I absentmindedly started looking through his wallet. I don’t know why I did. The picture case that came with the wallet was empty. But I looked in one of the pockets in the back and I pulled a tattered corner and out spilled a pile of pictures. My beautiful mother on their wedding day, pictures of me as a baby all worn from forty years of changing them from wallet to wallet, my sisters and brother, all four of his beloved grandchildren, my brother at Fenway Park and finally his mother’s obituary.
I didn’t know why the sight of those pictures struck me so until I realized that I was looking at pure love spilled out on the table, and my Daddy had, in that split second, given me a shot of bittersweet joy, enough to last a lifetime.
I am very confident that each time I say a prayer and remember to take the time to be patient enough to listen for the whisper of God’s answer, I will also hear the whisper of my earthly father guiding me as always to the right path. He never let me down and I will try mightily to live up to his great example.
