Pater Familias

Edit (February 2): My dad's surgery was successful -- the surgeon thinks that the cancer has not spread, although we don't have the pathologist's report yet. My dad is doing very well, with little pain so far. Thanks for your kind words and thoughts, and please keep praying for his recovery!

My father was diagnosed with cancer just before Christmas, and we've all been doing a lot of crying, a lot of laughing, and a lot of worrying. At first ominous, now it seems that there is a good chance of full recovery. Surgery is at 6:10 tomorrow morning, and I've come down to the Island to be with my family.

In our busy and independent modern society, we tend to save our expressions of love and appreciation until it's too late for that person to hear how we really felt. Somehow it seems all wrong, and inappropriate, to blurt out one's feelings... until it's too late. And then we share those feelings with everyone else, and we regret the fact that we never went ahead and told them just how we felt about them.

I don't want to do that with my Dad. I hope and pray he has many more years with us. But I'm not going to miss any opportunity to tell him, and the world, how I feel about him.

I tried for a long time to write this post tonight, sitting beside my sister as she knits a vest for my dad. After a lot of typing, deleting and staring into space, I've realized that it's too big an endeavor for one evening. He's a complicated guy -- he's a combination of Bill Cosby, Mr Cleaver, Charles Spurgeon and Pa Ingalls. Still waters run deep, and I know that there's a lot about my dad that I don't know, and don't understand. And tonight is a night to sit and laugh with my sister, cry a bit, and carry each other through this difficult wait.

But I'll tell you what I do know:

• I don't remember a single day of my childhood during which my dad forgot to say, "I sure love you."
• My dad can (and does) sing every verse of every hymn ever written, mostly while unloading the dishwasher and scrambling eggs.
• My dad is the most awesome canoeist in the whole wide world.
• My dad can carry the biggest armloads of firewood that you've ever seen.
• No matter what time of day or night, my dad could always be trusted to come running, shoe in hand, to kill any spider that had the gall to trespass into my bedroom.
• My dad can do a perfect loon call.
• My dad understands the grace of God more thoroughly than anyone I have ever met, seen, heard or read.
• My dad can strike a match off his jeans, or the sole of his shoe.
• My dad makes a great pot of chili.
• When I was in kindergarten, my dad was working afternoon shift. He used to walk me down to the bus stop at the end of the road, and wait with me until the big yellow bus came. We would always leave a few minutes early, so that I could pet the nice dog who lived one house up from the corner, and he'd carry my lunch kit and attentively listen to my chatter. When the bus arrived, I'd climb on, sit down and wave to him out the window. I used to watch him turn and walk back up the road, alone, and I'd think how proud I was to have a dad who came to wait with me.

Dad, you are everything a father should be. You worked your whole life to provide for us, and you provided a home that was safe, loving and happy. You and Mom are the kind of parents I want to be. I love you, and I am so proud to be your daughter.