Lessons from an Absent Dad

 

My father was absent for most of my childhood. He refused to escort me to my debutante ball, and he did not come to my high school graduation. He lived 30 minutes away. For several decades, I felt like his afterthought. I forgave him, but I resented his absence when I needed him the most. Several years ago, I decided that I would focus on the things my father did well. When I traveled from Florida to Virginia for visits, my father often met me at the airport. I can still see his Lincoln Continental parked curb side at the Norfolk airport. Since my father’s death two years ago, I’ve had the opportunity to examine his life and our relationship. Despite his shortcomings, I learned several things from my father:

1. It’s never too late to do the right thing. Although my father was absent during much of my childhood, he was present for many of the major events in my adult life. He helped me move from Virginia to Florida, and he returned to Florida a few months later to support me during one of my first jury trials. When I left my husband, my father called me every single day to make sure that I was okay mentally and to ensure that I was safe.

2. Own your position. During the last years of his life, my father would end our conversations with, “Connie Renee, I’m still your father.” That meant that he was present. The past was the past, but he affirmed our current relationship.

3. Focus on the present. Although we didn’t know each other that well when I was a child, as an adult, I learned that we both enjoyed gardening. When we spoke the last years of his life, he would ask me what I had planted, and he would tell me how well or how poorly things were growing in his garden.

4. Manage how you will be remembered. At some point, my father decided that he did not want to be remembered as an absent parent. He decided that he wanted to be remembered as loving, involved and protective.

My father passed the baton to me in March 2013. Fretting about his failures is too heavy a burden. Instead, when I water my peach tree and my blackberry bush, I think of the fact that he would be proud of me. When I sit at the desk in my home office, I glance at the picture of my father at my daughter’s high school graduation.

No parent is perfect. Every family has some level of dysfunction. I’m grateful that my father made the effort to give me happy memories and good lessons.