Thankful Thursday #2

It didn’t take me long after seeing that old photo of my Dad and me that he would be my “Thankful Thursday post”.


I am from the generation where “kids were seen and not heard”. Literally. My Father worked very hard and when he got home we were to let him be while he relaxed in his favorite chair. I remember very clearly that if you were in his chair when he got home … you got out of it quick. If we were watching the TV (which was only allowed on after my Father came home from work and only when a parent turned it on) but were standing in the way, he would say, “You make a better door than a window”. It’s funny the things we remember, isn’t it? I didn’t have much in common with my Father. He and my next older sister would spend an enormous amount of time hanging out together doing something with their horses. She shared that interest with him.I didn’t. Frankly, I was am afraid of the beasts. Um, HELLO? I am afraid of dogs! You know I am going to be afraid of a horse! The only interactions I had with my Father, on more occasions than I care to remember, were when I was in trouble. I was in trouble a LOT. It was nothing to hear on any given day, “Wait till your Father gets home!” I was promptly told to face the corner by the front door and wait there until he got home. Yikes! I think my Father didn’t want to see me standing there after a long hard physical day at work any more than I wanted to see him! Ok, maybe it was worse on me 🙂


I say all of this to say … we just didn’t have much in common. Nothing that would bond us together … until … that fateful day when my Father needed someone to hold a light for him as he worked on the car at night. I still remember those times fondly! I would hold the light and while he was working, he would answer all my questions. Patiently. With explanations. In great detail. Somewhere along the way, while I was holding that flashlight for him, he became my “DAD”. I was interested in how to fix things on a car and he was too. The conversations would sometimes drift to other things and in that time we grew closer. (I think I may have worn him down actually! *giggle* I am the youngest of 4 and I hear I am a bit tenacious)I started helping him in other things too. Birthing a foal, making fence, working in the yard … and out of that came a love to build, create, landscape, maintain my car, and never ever own a horse. I leave that to my sister and Him.


At my Son’s Open House for his High School graduation, we were sitting on the deck (that I had built with my daughter just to show her girls could), when my dad leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I am so proud of you. I never could have built this deck”. Oh but he did! He did it through those years he spent with me … talking, teaching, and sharing his love of what he did. Inspiring me and encouraging me to go further than what he had done. Isn’t that all what we want for our children? Learn from us … but go further. 

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