Yesterday was my father's 67th birthday and so I called him on the phone. Of course it was late in Pennsylvania, where he is, later than it was in Washington, where I was calling from, and so I woke him up, or rather my mom did it for me. They are both really lovely people, and I am so grateful to be their son and to have been their child.
I was probably not the easiest kid to rear, but few of us can claim to be that. Without a doubt, I presented my father with certain challenges. I had a proclivity for obstreperousness and otherwise anything I was forbidden to do. My father and I have fortunately forgiven ourselves for all of the misunderstandings and disagreements that have come between us over the years, and I think I can say that we are fans of one another.
Both of my parents are life long Democrats, and I no doubt gave them a scare when I flirted with Republicanism as an adolescent. There was never any question for them though, not even Ronald Reagan could tempt them. In time of course I saw the wisdom of their position, and joined them on the side of civic responsibility, fairness and equity, the common good and a common cause.
My father is the sort of man who says hello to everyone. This is not hyperbole, I mean this absolutely literally. I have inherited this quality from him, and I cherish it to this day. Whether it be a construction worker holding a sign or a cashier at a convenience store or a baggy pants teen or a police officer on the street, damn near everybody gets a sincere hello from me and a meaningfully inquisitive glance, just as they did from my father. I have decided that this behavior has led me into many pleasant conversations as well as given me abundant opportunity, and even kept me safe where I might have otherwise been perceived to be a threat. My dad taught me this, and it is something that I will always be grateful to him for.
Another quality that I have acquired from my father is an intense pursuit of physical and mental strength. You see, my father is a wrestling coach, and he has been the coach of the same college team for better than 40 years. That commitment is hard for me to fathom, but embedded in his years of dedication to the teams and to King's College, is his admiration of a certain kind of strength that humans are capable of. Strength under pressure, when threatened, when tired or injured, when victory is out of reach and time is running out. I remember as a child hearing him coax these characteristics out of his wrestlers, and to this day I aspire to them. No matter the crushing impossibility I may face, within me is the strength my father showed me how to find there.
I remember the civil war battlefields and the museum exhibitions, the towering monuments that we stood before in humble gratitude for the lives we led and the freedoms we enjoyed. He never forgets, nor allowed us to forget, that we have achieved something very special in this country. It required many lives be well spent and painfully sacrificed that we might have the rights of a democratic state. My father is an avid historian, and dedicated 35 years teaching in a public middle school. His commitment to public schools, and the belief that every child should acquire a thorough education, that there should be no privilege out of reach to someone who is willing to work to have it, shaped my ideas about the world and how we should all live in it.
As a Catholic Irish American, my father also felt the suffering of the people of Northern Ireland. He improved the lives of individual Irish, especially children, and worked to resolve the wider conflict without diminishing the identity that offered us a connection to our past. My father has this ability, to admire his own unique heritage without aiming to reduce the value of others'. I sometimes find myself confronted with those who would diminish the value of one or another culture, even their own. Thanks to my father, I am well equipped to see the faults of a culture, without overlooking the authentic elements that provide humans a connection to the world, a means to interpret what would otherwise be a chaotic universe.
So, for these things and many others I am grateful to my father. When I surprise an unsuspecting stranger with a warm hello, or run the final stretch of my daily dog walk, or complete a difficult task that resists my initial attempts, or admire the view I have of this world as I appreciate the vision of another, I am seeing the world as my father taught me to see it. Not perfect, but meaningful and challenging and demanding my engagement with it. When the intonation of my own "How are you doing?" sounds hauntingly familiar to me, I am grateful to him and I thank him with a smile.