When I was small, my dad used to send me greeting cards from work, just 
for the hell of it. They were usually funny, or sweet, or sweetly funny. The message was the same, “Hey kid, I’m thinking of ya!”
Dad was never a very demonstrable man—except when he was angry—so this always struck me as somewhat odd. When I quizzed my friends about it, they thought it was strange too.
“It’s not your birthday or anything?”
“Nope.”
“And he just sends you…cards?”
“Yup.”
“Weird.”
Weird it may have been, but I always looked forward to getting the mail because I never knew when I might get another “just cuz” card. It felt good to know he was thinking of me, even when he wasn’t around. At that age, I really didn’t know what Dad did at work, only that he left in the morning and came home every night, reliable as a Swiss watch. To my childish mind, life was good. There was food on the table, clothes on my back, a warm roof over my head, and absolutely nothing to need. I didn’t understand until much later how hard a trick that is to pull off.
Like most young men in my dad’s generation, just coming out of a depression and terrible world war, he had dreams of things he’d wanted to do. But when my oldest brother was born, he found the necessities of raising a family precluded most of them. So, he did what dads have done through the ages: he gritted his teeth and did whatever it took to take care of his new family. Two more boys followed the first, pretty much locking him on a path he might not otherwise have chosen. Instead, he learned to find satisfaction, not in what might have been, but in doing what needed doing as well as he possibly could.
So he never reached the rank of colonel in the Army, he never went to university, or became a teacher, or wrote a book but he raised three boys and took loving care of his wife for 67 years. All those years of toil may have been little more than drudgery, but for him, that was just how it had to be. If he ever felt discouraged, you’d never know it and he would never say so. It only dawned on me when I grew up, that sending me those cards probably reminded him of what he was doing it all for.
Dad is 87 now. His birthday falls right around Thanksgiving so we always celebrate the two together. Last year, instead of celebrating with the traditional turkey and his favorite treat, mincemeat pie—besides a very dry vodka martini that is—he had a stroke while undergoing surgery. The surgery was meant to prevent him from having one, but that’s how life goes sometimes. Rehabilitation was an uphill battle, but like everything else my dad does, he just gutted it out and got it done. He came home just before Christmas.
Now Dad’s in the hospital again, this time with pneumonia and congestive heart failure. He suffers quietly, putting up a cheerful front to each of his visitors. Alone with Mom though, he lets down the facade. He’s frightened. Nothing works anymore and that galls him. He worries about who will take care of Mary and his boys if he’s unable to do it any longer. He doesn’t understand that it’s because of the excellent job he did all along, that we can take care of ourselves…and Mom…and him.
What did I learn from my dad? I learned that life doesn’t always work out the way you thought it would—or hoped it would—but that you still owe it your best effort. Never feel sorry for yourself, do your best, hope in God, and everything will work out in the end.
And one more thing…
Always remember that no matter where I go in this life, he’ll be thinking of me.
