Dad

My dad was impossible to buy anything for because he already had everything that he wanted. We could not out-think him. Our gifts became predictable. Then he'd joke about predicting, and the prediction would come true then everyone laughed at our gifts. It was frustrating.

My sister told me, "Dad said, 'watch. Bobby's going to give me a cheese and sausage gift box.' Sure enough you did and we all laughed."

Son of a bitch!

Then I became ill and I realized there are several things that I really needed to say to him. Things I had been thinking about for a long time. I had to get this out. Things that came up by meeting more people and realizing how messed up they are psychologically and personality-wise, how emotionally unstable, how weird, and how in so many cases they came from a family without the presence of a father. I hadn't considered myself lucky to have been born within a stable nuclear family structure, and I hadn't realized until late how my dad managed all that parental business through extraordinarily unstable circumstances. He really was our rock.

A mean son of a bitch rock.

He had to be. To keep us in line. Even then he wasn't there half the time. We'd move to a place then he'd be reassigned temporarily, or shipped off for more technical training. He was elsewhere half the time his family was growing such that our mother kept his official military photograph framed and set on the television so that we'd not forget who he is, and upon each return he had to get the whole family back on track. We wandered off in our own directions without his strict attention.

It's why I hate the word discipline.

Especially the phrase self-discipline. I'd much rather do whatever I want. Shine my shoes, do my homework, mow the lawn, vacuum the floor, clean the garage, put my folded clothes away, help clean the dishes.  I don't want to do any of those things. I'd rather be free, la la la, catch butterflies, draw lizards, go fishing, shape things with clay, explore the new place, follow the railroad tracks, walk up the creek, climb to the roof of the school, break into a barn, catch snakes, run through the woods, climb through the crashed airplane on the side of the runway, climb trees, climb through fences, explore agricultural fields, catch an armadillo, go through the dump. Why oh why was he so demanding? Why so concerned about what I am doing every day? Why so concerned about what I do with my life? Why even use that word discipline on me? I'm a kid!

God, I hated his constant demands. He was a very demanding parent.

Bossing me around all over the place. Barking my butt off, chewing me up.

I had no idea how excellent his parenting. How fine his attention. How acute his direction.

So I bought a stupid card that said something prosaic at the card store and spent sorting these thoughts and took time to get my handwriting to match standard American cursive, with no misspellings, and no x-ing out, no corrections, and I told him all that I thought. I told him as I grew up that I realized he did something that I couldn't do; raise a large family and keep it together through difficult circumstances in series all the way through, and keep it tight. Although Air Force, he ran a very tight ship. And it worked! I told him, congratulations, Dad, you are successful in your life's real work. You must know that I love you for that, we love you, for all that you've done for us. Through thick and through thin.  For better or worse. Always directing us. You really did do that. You lived up to the challenge.

Ask any military man to rank their loyalties and they always say family first, then nation, then God. They never say God, nation family. Never say, nation, god family. Family is never second or third. Always first. Then they get divorced and forswear their children. But my dad really did live that. He proved it every single day, week, month, every year, year in and year out to his very last day on earth.

He is utterly 100% loyal.

To us.

I didn't know this, my mother told me, he carried that letter with him wherever he went. He'd show his letter that I wrote to his buddies where he went regularly for a few drinks. That letter meant more to him than any of the little gifts that we thought up. Nothing matched simply telling him in writing what I thought and felt. It meant the world to him.