Today was Father's Day....and on the drive back from Orlando I was thinking about my dad. I have a terrific relationship with my father, as do my brother and sister. That's important, because I think when the three of us were younger, we may have viewed my father as a somewhat distant figure. Not that he didn't love us or anything like that--far from it. My father was like a lot of men from his generation, having to work long hours to provide for his family, and doing a great job. My parents had their 50th anniversary celebration a few years ago, and we made sort of a family scrapbook to commemorate the occasion. Here's what I wrote about my father:
"I remember growing up that I didn't see my father a lot. I can recall playing little league baseball and feeling a huge sense of disappointment that my father didn't get to go to many of my games. I recall thinking how lucky my friends were that their father's always somehow managed to make it to the the games. 'How lucky they are,' I thought, 'that their fathers are home at the end of the day.' Their fathers were there to show them the proper way to field a grounder, the right way to hold a bat when you want to go to the opposite field. Most importantly, their fathers were there.
Boy, Dad, was I ever wrong. I was wrong because, in my youth, I failed to realize that you were doing what millions of other fathers were doing, with little or no appreciation. You were going that extra mile at work to make sure that your children had everything they wanted. You were coming home from work, usually when it was already dark, so the woman you chose to spend your life with would want for nothing. You did just a little bit more so that people who worked for you could understand that excellence was a standard, not an expectation.
That standard of excellence could be a hard thing to live up too. It wasn't easy when the bar has been set so high. There are only two people who understand just how high. Sorry Rene, but when you're the SON of Larry Bowdren, the highest level of expectation are those that you set for yourself. One thing I can say about my father is that he never told my brother and I that he expected us to acheive goals in life that were equal to his. He even went out of his way to tell us that we should be ourown men, set our own goals. However, I believe that my brother and I, of our own volition, decided to ourselves that we needed to each be within grasping distance of that so highly placed bar.
I recall a moment in my life when I had to give my father some bad news. It was a moment in which I had failed. My father struggled to understand why I had been unable to succeed and was looking for an explaination. How difficult it was to look into his face and see, not a look of anger, but a look of disappointment at my personal failure. As I grasped for an excuse, I finally was able to tell my father something that I had waited a lifetime to say.
"I can't be you. You have set the standard too high."
Now at this point I'm sure that many fathers would have berated their sons for personal failure or for seeking an excuse. Instead, my father said:
"I never asked you to be me. I only asked you to be yourself. You have many gifts. I don't want you to set your standard too low."
When I first was given the task to write my thoughts on my father, I thought that I could have a lot of fun telling you some funny stories of his adventures with my mother. The places they've been, the funny way they seem to understand each other and what the other is thinking. The way that my brother and sister laugh when I tell a story about the way my parents can bicker without ever really having an arguement.
The way that my father is so totally dependent on my mother, and she in her own way on he. But instead, I'll tell you in two brief stories that describe him to me.
I was in the garage one day and happened to come across my father's old high school yearbook. Now, you have to understand that I was maybe 20 or 21 years old at the time, and in my eyes my father seemed to pretty square to me. I started reading the yearbook and discovered, much to my eternal shock and surprise, that not only was my father quite and athlete...but appeared to be something of a ladies man. You have no idea just how appalling this ist to a young man who thought his father was about as hip as Ward Cleaver. But one comment that was written in the book always stuck with me, and caused me to re-evaluate my father.
"To Larry--not just a card, the whole deck."
It was about that time that I began to look at my father in a different light. He had pretty much retired at that point, and our relationship became much closer. It continues to do so. I remember when I used to call my parents that after an inital hello my father would hand the phone to my mother and any information that would be gained would be done through her. Now, as they say, the worm has turned.
She answeres the phone and quickly hands the phone to my father when she discovers its me. ("Hey Mom! I want to talk to you too, ya know!")
The 2nd story is about something I already mentioned. Somewhere along the line over the last ten years or so, I've come up with the stories of two people who have almost become characters in a movie. I began to call them "Mare & Lair". I would tell my brother and sister about something funny that happened during a visit and might mention something about it at work. The stories have taken on a life of their own. Now, after a weekend with my parents, I actually have people from work who will approach me and ask me if I have any new "Mare & Lair" stories! The great thing about my parents is that they'll sit and laugh along with us while I tell the stories (usually with one or two corrections by my mother). They realize the laughter comes from years of knowing, understanding, and appreciating all that life can be.
I was told, as a child, that I was "my father's son". I am told, as an adult, that people look at me and see my father as a younger man. I can think of no greater compliment that can be paid to me. For you see, my father, Laurence Bowdren.....
is the finest man that I know.
He is, and always will be, everything that I want to be."
And so...on the drive home today, I was thinking about which stories from the weekend I could write about....or more specifically, which ones that dad was sitting there praying I did NOT write about. I love it when something comes up on a visit and he'll say to me:
"That's not for the journal!"
Well that's just the motivation I need to do exactly that. I think that my father, in his own mind, thinks that when I hear, or my brother and sister hear, a story about him....that he worries that it might somehow "lessen him" in our eyes. What it really does is HUMANIZE him. So for now, I'll sit on a story or two....or maybe I'll let my dad worry that I'll tell the one about......
Now that is going to drive him CRAZY.
Later,
Jeff
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