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.