Gratitude Day #2
It would only be fitting that the day following my gratitude post for my mom would be the day I am grateful for my dad.
I miss him.
Dad barely made it out of elementary school in rural Kentucky. Dad went as far as 6th grade, spending three years in 4th grade. Mom went all the way to 8th grade. Yet he and my mom were two of the smartest people I ever knew.
Like his father and his grandfather, they could make anything they wanted with their hands - and no plans. His grandfather could build a house doing the measurements in his head. He would fell the trees nearly to the exact amount needed. Dad made me a wheat grinder by going to the dump and securing a washing machine motor. He built housing around it, ordered two burr stones, bought an extra long funnel, and presented it to me. Mine is better than most will ever own. It's over 30 years old, and still grinds the best flour.
After resisting following my mom and my sisters in joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he finally realized that this was what both he and his family needed to weed out some of the things that were not so good in their lives, and to bring them a bit higher in their aspirations. He made the move to Ohio after learning that the opportunities for education for my sisters were greater.
Dad worked in the coal mines in West Virginia, providing as best he could for my mom and three sisters. While WWII was still raging, he was the only one from the coal camp who was drafted. There were other young men; but it was dad who was taken into the US Navy -- and sent to Pearl Harbor.
Dad served as Bishop of our local congregation, and held that position when he baptized me at age eight. He also worked full time at Westinghouse, and had his own refrigeration/air conditioning business on the side. The latter came from the skills he learned in the Navy.
I had my dad longer than my mom. She died in 1984; dad in 2002.
I had a conversation with a friend today about hands. Yesterday I showed my granddaughter's hands holding onto mine. My mom was always ashamed of her hands, for they looked old and withered. Dad's hands were rough, yet his fingertip pads were smooth - the sign of a hard worker with no fingerprints.
I would love to hold their hands again; to run my own hands over theirs and recall the hard work they performed to provide their whining daughter a good life.
Yes, I am grateful for good, good parents. They raised me when I was born to them in their forties. And, they did the best they could.
Oh, I can't wait to embrace them and thank them like they deserve.
Dad, about the time he was serving as Bishop from 1961-1964.
Dad baptizing me in the Mansfield Chapel
Mom and Dad and Me - 1965
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