Stories from the Steps

DEAR DAD,
     Today marks the 13th time I’ve celebrated your birthday without you. Before you left us in September 2013, we had taken advantage of time & said the things fathers & sons need to share.
      The five years preceding were the five hardest I’ve ever experienced & I’ve always had a little uncertainty that I said it all. Spurred on by a sermon by my pastor, I think I need to catch you up & maybe cleanse my soul a little more because I keep running into you in unexpected places.
       Places like a newly installed door at my school. A door that found me with a trowel applying drywall mud. My memory applied more.
      More as in the semester I was a less than stellar student. A student that could be described by Emily Dickinson’s words, “I am out with lanterns, looking for myself”. A student revealed by the lanterns glow to be enveloped in the uneasy covenant of lost souls, straddling the demolition brought by demons of desire & the unapplauded admiration of grit & sweat.
      A student you woke up every morning & made me get to class & then work with you or start work with you, go to class smelling of paint & plaster & then finish the day with you.
      I figured if God let’s folks look down from Heaven, you got quite a chuckle. You told me I’d starve if tools were in my future & I had better focus on teaching & coaching & writing.
     And there I was doing drywall work as a faculty member less than a week from a person in a 27th country subscribing to my blog. Like most young men between the ages of 13 & 21, I’d choose rigid, wounded, & proud  because you said flexible, healed, & humble were better choices & at that age, a boy never can stand it when a father is right, but you were right, …again.
      While I was doing my drywall work, I relayed to a golfing co-worker some other good advice you gave. That wise one, the day I shot what is still my lowest round ever on the links. One I shot as a newly minted groom on a Sunday morning. One that same Sunday evening, as we shared a phone call, you reminded me in a level but firm tone that on Sunday mornings, I would always be better off on the last pew than the first tee.
       This week, it was in photos & lollipops where we crossed paths. Yesterday marked a year since me & little sister closed the deal on the house you & mom bought in 1977. I stumbled across pics of your chair. The one you watched ball games & grandchildren from. The one you prepped Sunday School lessons or sermons from. The one you worried about us from, prayed for us from & chased the worry & prayers with a Tootsie Pop from.
     I found photos of your seat in an old gymnasium. That seat on the end of the second section, fourth row up. The one for the president, founder & often only admitting card carrying member of my fan club. That gym, your seat & the rest of the school no longer exist but belief is more powerful than a bulldozer.
       The past few weeks have been tough. Mom’s had a couple of spills, life happens & I’m down to one Tootsie Pop at work and 3 at home but your belief in me & proof in your words coming to life, has gotten me through.
        Belief & proof like when I followed an awful baseball season with one claiming All City honors because you knew I could. Belief & proof a little over a year later when an exploded left leg resulted in early athletic retirement but you told me there would be greater rewards in being a good husband & father & friend. Belief & proof that I’d fit in a student ministry as long as I realized it was more than a Sunday morning & Wednesday night gig & the payoff wouldn’t be immediate.
         I thought about belief & proof last Sunday night when I was invited to an ordination service for a former student. I counted 16 faces that were older than the first time i saw them. One was in the first group I led, another in the last & that face took my place. Yesterday, one of the people I had lunch with was the mom of a student that graduated eight years ago. She let her daughter know she had lunch with me. Payoff. Belief & proof.
       You missed a couple of births & a couple of weddings but you need to know both your grandsons have beautiful wives & you have two beautiful great-granddaughters. I hope me & little sis have taken care of mom in a way that makes you proud and one more thing.
       I told you about readers around the globe & that you were right but I thought you’d like to know you were right about that teaching/coaching thing too. Every morning, in a little gym, I get to unlock an office with my name on it. For a few minutes, I’m alone until the next staffer walks in. To them I’m alone, it’s just me & the sonic thwack of a dribbled basketball & the sweet sound of a shot hitting nothing but net. They don’t see the company I keep in you & your unending belief in me. You were right about that too.
    Thank you for all of it & thank you for helping me to start to feel about the guy reflected in my mirror the way you always did. I’m sure we’ll run into one another soon. Happy Birthday Dad!!