Remembering a Special Father

I’ve been lucky so often in life, never more so than when I married my husband who has been our son’s father, steady and true for almost 30 years. I often say that Mike married me so that he could be Michael’s father. When Mike and I married, Michael stood snuggled between us and told everyone at the wedding that “we got married today.”

In marrying the father our son has relied upon for all the years since, I got a very special father-in-law. Father Hayward and son Mike looked so much alike that anyone who knew either of them could be sure of their relationship without being introduced to the other. Not only did they have the physical resemblance, but they shared the same devilish sense of humor.

My name for Hayward Lumpkin was “Wayward” because of his constant effort to slyly mislead and misdirect all who came his way. A career in the military had not changed his sense of fun. A World War II veteran who had surely seen much that he would never forget, he never brought darkness to those around him, instead lighting the room with the twinkle in his eye.

One of my fondest memories of “Pappy,” as the grandchildren called him, was at a lake in Alabama where he spent an afternoon fishing with Michael. The two of them were thick as thieves from the moment they met, sharing hours and days of loving camaraderie. Their time as fishing friends was something both treasured. The photograph of that day is one of our favorites.

Occasionally when Mike and I had to be away from home, Pappy eagerly volunteered to come to stay with Michael. He loved to take our little one to Shoney’s where kids ate free. Pappy enjoyed the amazement the staff expressed as Michael turned up again and again to refill his plate at the buffet. He was the proverbial “bottomless pit” and Pappy claimed that Michael might single-handedly put them out of business. Pappy prided himself on pinching his pennies and sought bargains wherever they were to be found.

Pappy and the love of his life, Willie Mae, raised three wonderful children, encouraging them to learn and pursue higher education. They glowed with pride in each child and in the grandchildren who followed. They embraced me as a daughter-in-law, as they did their sons-in-law. They welcomed friends and family into their home and even went out of their way to help an elderly couple with a myriad of needs from driving them to doctor visits to helping them pay their bills.

I miss Pappy and will for the rest of my life. Like my father, he was a source of strength and joy. He encouraged me to be myself, even when my unorthodox approach to playing as his bridge partner occasionally baffled him and caused us to lose. He was an excellent card player and played to win, but indulged my rebelliousness, perhaps because he recognized my individuality as he prized his own.

I am much blessed this Father’s Day. It has been my great good fortune to know the love of father and father-in-law and to see that shared with our son. I am gifted with the love of my husband, a good father himself. As my son said to me recently, “I look forward to having children who know Dad because I think he will be the kind of grandfather to them that Pappy was to me.” I can’t imagine higher praise.





Ma. Mike, Linda, Ramona, Hayward



Honoring My Father (1908-1986)

For all the years that he has been gone, my father’s presence in my life is with me every day. I hear his voice in my own with the words that he used. I see his eyes in my face and in my son’s. I feel his sense of humor rippling through me as I laugh and I recognize it in the spirit of fun that has been a part of my son almost from the day of his birth.  John William Armstrong, Jr., lives on in us.

He resides in me today, not just as a memory, but as the spirit imbued in me through his example. He taught me so many things, some of them seemingly contradictory. His compassion for others was evident in many ways. He would answer a call any time of day or night to help someone to whom he felt responsibility. He gave his heart to those who needed someone to believe in them, even when their frailties or disabilities might bring him to tears when he returned home from working with them.

He could be intimidating to us as children. His expectations for us were high. We were in awe of his edgy intelligence, a breadth of knowledge drawn from living and from voracious reading. Unable to attend more than a few months of college, he educated himself while working in a myriad of jobs. When we were growing up, he worked long hours and was often up long before we arose, then home in the afternoon when we finished school.

Even as he hungered for knowledge, he remained bound for too long to some of the ways of the past. He clung to the mores of a rural South he learned from relatives with bitter memories of Reconstruction.  Ultimately, he would admit that he had been wrong about many things, but in his wrongheadedness, I never knew him to treat anyone unkindly or cruelly.  He would not allow us to treat anyone as our inferior.

He espoused a level of cynicism that was hard for me to understand as a child. I can relate to it better now, having experienced more of life, including the disappointments, as well as too many views “behind the curtain,” where I’ve discovered flawed human beings are seldom wizards or heroes. Though an avowed cynic who often told me: “you’ll see,” Daddy showed an enormous faith in human nature throughout his life.

So what is this heritage that fathers leave their children? Is it the way we look, or the training we’re given? Is it the biases and prejudices we carry forward into our own lives? Is it their beliefs? Is it their questions? Is it the talents witnessed or the manners ingrained? It is all of these, I believe. Those of us fortunate enough to have a loving father in our lives, one we might honor this Father’s Day, take away a gift.

It is the gift of love, given freely and generously in the best way our dads know how. They give themselves in risking parenthood at the start, in being our role models throughout and in leaving us with the grace and courage to go on if they pass on before we do. Sadly this year, as during so many wars and other armed conflicts in the past, many will miss a father who gave his life for our country.

My wish for them and for all of us is to have the memories that allow us to have our fathers, though gone before us, living in us. May we know that grace this Father’s Day 2012.