Día del Padre

Last week I got to talking with a former coach about the past. Nestled within the conversation was a recollection about my father which stuck with me. Apparently in all of his years coaching my father was the only parent present at every practice. "He'd bring his work with him but he was there."

My father and I haven't always had an easy relationship. Though I don't remember a whole lot from my childhood I think my conception of him as a father, like so many other children, was one akin to Superman. I can still remember the day he became human, the day my parents separated. Though I believe every child struggles to come to terms with their father's humanity, my own experience seemed to be heightened due to the event coinciding with my teenage years and thus perhaps magnifying my disenfranchisement.

Over the next four or five years we had our ups and downs, butting heads over a myriad of things. I struggled to come to terms with my emotions and my anger while he struggled to figure me out. It seems that distance was the magical salve we needed. When I went away for college it seemed that our problems thawed somewhat. I suppose living eight hours away allows for a sense of perspective, and no doubt I was slowly maturing. Distance hasn't cured everything and from time to time we still have our arguments. These all seemed to stem from my silence, which itself arose out of my fear of disappointing the one person whose approval I sought more than anything else.

The lucky among us know parental love and dotage. We perhaps know it so well that we've come to expect it in our lives and thus devalue it because it is expected, the natural order.

As age and experience continue to soften the edges of my relationships with everyone, I more easily see how lucky I was and how lucky I continue to be. Perhaps this exploration is trite but through it all, through my obstinacy and anger, my father has always been there looking out for me. He's always done his job as a parent--wanting what's best for his children. My father strove to provide my siblings and me with a life, through his own time and through the means his job provided. That juxtaposition, working while attending my practice, though not romantic and not necessarily poignant, is my father. It sums up not only his dedication at being in my life but truly providing for it as well.

In one way or another I am my father, just as he was his. Without his library, without his curve balls, and without his protection I would be a shell of the "man" I am today. My eternal regret is never really knowing how to thank him.