I can recall going the ties, socks, and handkerchief route when I was a child, because those were the sort of things that were in my budget. As I got older (and had more financial resources), I moved on to fishing rods, athletic shoes, and clothes. On Daddy’s last Father’s Day, I took him several new shirts that I thought would be cool and comfortable for him for summer. Although they weren’t the kind he normally wore, he put one on and wore it that day.
Of course, none of us knew then that he was in his last month with us. We’d watched him getting weaker since his collapse before Christmas, but we’d thought originally that, once he got out of the hospital and the rehab center in Temple and back home in Lampasas, where he could have visits from friends and relatives daily, he’d improve. Early on, it seemed that might happen. We’d visit on weekends and take him out to have a Dr Pepper at Storm’s or a burger from Sonic, and he’d seem to enjoy it. Back then no matter how tired he was, he was never ready to be taken back to the nursing home.
That changed, however, later in the spring. We had driven over to San Saba where he had lived as a boy, and he enjoyed the scenery for a while, but as he got tired, he began to be restless and finally expressed a desire to be taken “home.” He’d never referred to the nursing home that way before. By Father’s Day I’d finally almost accepted that the nursing home would be his permanent residence, but that Sunday he seemed in good spirits and really enjoyed the day.
Thinking back to the gifts we gave him over the years, they weren’t much in comparison to what he’d given to us, not only his hard work to provide for the family as long as he was physically able, but his pride in each of his three kids, his excitement whenever we came for a visit, his sadness whenever it was time for us to leave. We never had to wonder if Daddy loved us. He showed his love every day when we were all at home, and by the time we were grown and ready to leave home, we didn’t question it.
That didn’t mean, however, that he wasn’t strict. He believed part of being a good father was in being a disciplinarian whenever we misbehaved. I know from family stories that I was responsible for more than my share of that misbehavior, including getting loose in church one Sunday during the invitation time at the end of the service when I wasn’t much more than a toddler. I ran down one of the aisles on the side of the church, and he stepped out in the aisle to chase me. To my 2-year-old self, that meant “play time with Daddy,” so I began to squeal as he gave chase. He finally caught me by doubling back. I kept looking behind me to see where he was and didn’t notice him coming around in front of me. He took me out and spanked me, and I never interrupted another service in that way again.
Daddy had learned to be a father from his own father, my grandfather whom we called “Hampa.” Apparently, I couldn’t say Grampa when I first started talking, so what came out was Hampa, and it stuck. Hampa was a quiet, gentle man when I knew him, a man who had worked hard for his family and was a person of integrity. In his earlier years, he had worked as a blacksmith, a fact that did not seem to correspond to his short stature and small, wiry build. Later, when Daddy was a boy, the youngest of three in that family, he had done some sharecropping and the whole family—children, too—picked cotton. They worked hard, and none of the three children went to school for very long, but their memories of that time were good ones: trips to West Texas by covered wagon, fish fries and campouts on the Lampasas River, visits to see relatives on the Gulf Coast.
Because of an experience he had as a young man with his own father, Hampa had resolved to be a good father to his own children, even if they did have to work picking cotton or doing other farm chores. His own father, a man who had 10 children by his first wife and four more when she died and he married her sister, was not a nurturing sort of father. In fact, he was a hard man who was known for telling his children, the boys anyway, that he was not going to support them anymore, that it was time for them to make their own way in the world. This usually happened when they were teenagers, and because Hampa was one of the oldest, this happened to him. In fact, Hampa was working on his own when he received word that his mother was dying, so he went home to visit her on her deathbed. His father met him at the door and refused to let him in to see her.
In my 35 years as a teacher, I’ve seen a lot of students come through my classes who have no real relationship with their fathers, some of them who have never even met their father, and many others who have grown up without even a father figure in their lives. The numbers have seemed to increase in recent years. Unfortunately, statistics say that, by not having personally seen and experienced a father’s love, many of them will also be absentee fathers, producing a new generation of children who grow up essentially without a father’s influence. That certainly was not the case with us.
Besides Daddy’s influence, we also had Hampa and our mother’s foster father, Grandman. Both of them spent time with us and had an influence on our lives. My brother loves to tell about one time that he spent the night with Hampa. They had planned to have cornflakes the next morning for breakfast, but when they checked the refrigerator, all he had was buttermilk, so they are their cornflakes that morning with buttermilk.
Grandman used to tell us some of the wildest tall tales imaginable, and we kids believed every word he said. Grandman was also a hunter, and he loved hunting squirrels. In his youth, squirrels had been a part of the family food supply, and he continued to enjoy eating squirrel all his life. In fact, one of the memories my sister has of visits with Granny and Grandman was looking into their freezer and seeing those little aluminum-foil-wrapped, four-legged bodies.
When my brother married and had three children of his own, I saw him become the same sort of strong, dependable father Daddy had been as Daddy adjusted to a new role as grandfather, or Papaw, as Corey, Graham, and Casey called him. By that time, Hampa and Grandman were no longer with us, but Daddy did the sort of things with his grandchildren that his father and father-in-law had done. Daddy took Corey and Graham fishing and went to watch their T-ball games when they were small, and sat on a tiny chair or on the floor drinking pretend “coffee” as Casey “cooked” in her little kitchen.
Now Corey, Graham, and Casey are grown, and Graham is married and has two little girls. Daddy would have loved spoiling those two little girls, but since he’s not here, my brother has moved into the role of grandfather, or Pops, as Ava Grace and Edy Rose call him, and he treats them like princesses. Graham, their father, having learned from the example of his father and grandfather, spends time with his girls, loving them, providing for them, training them, and disciplining them when necessary.
We have a legacy of strong fathers in the family, but thinking about them always makes me think of something Jesus said in one of his sermons. As good as human fathers can be, they aren’t perfect, but most fathers do want what is best for their children, even though they may not know how to provide it. As Jesus said, “What kind of father, if his child asked for something to eat, would give him a rock?” (That’s the Ann Hale version, paraphrased.) “So if flawed human fathers try to take care of their children, how much more would our Heavenly Father do for his children?”
The legacy is this: the experience we have of the strong fathers mentioned above, and of other loving fathers among our uncles, cousins, and friends, shows us in a small way just how great God’s love for us is.
May you all have a happy Father’s Day, surrounded by the love and memories of strong, loving fathers among your family members and friends.
