SOMETIMES YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHEN YOU'VE LOST SOMETHING

Sometimes you don't even know when you've lost something!

Thinking of Dad. I LOVE him so much. Benevolent dictator. FIRST memory is his game, when we were riding in the car, of giving prize of one dime to the one who first sees and shares the news of "I see a rainbow!" and "I see the lake" (we were traveling to). That instilled in me (I don't know about my brother and sisters) the sense of anticipation instead of irritation and impatience; and a sense of joy in sharing the news of a joyful event of creation. Oooh! What a sweet lesson Dad taught. Did he know how sweet and wonderful that lesson was?

Other memories: he presided over our saying prayers at bedtime for a time, at least. That made me realize it must be a good thing to pray to God. In church, he enforced a "no fidgeting" rule by holding my two (fidgeting) hands in his ONE big hand closest to me. I don't know if that was necessarily good. It sounds odd, now, that a parent would  object to a child fidgeting in church. But the combination of his expressing in that way that church is important AND paying some attention to me, the youngest of 4 children -that was helpful to me, I think. I think there was a peaceful security in his calm insistence on this stillness while he listened to the sermon, etc.

I was envious of my older siblings, that they got to have Dad involved in their homework (I remember watching as Dad and David constructed replica of Jefferson's home or something, using an upside-down wooden bowl for the rotunda. And Dad went on Boy scouts camping and canoeing.) BUT, I really enjoyed bonding with Dad while I helped him by holding a board end while he sawed, or helping bundle up branches or yard clippings on warm summer days. That was MY opportunity to bond with Dad.

And Dad was the one who pushed and prodded me to get a job after college graduation, and gave me a direction to go in. Maybe it wasn't the best direction for me. Or maybe it WAS. After all, maybe he noticed that I enjoyed making mudpies in the backyard when I was a child. And he did see that I got a degree in soil and crop science at A&M. So a job as a soil lab tech was a good guess for me.

I'm not sure what I was going to talk about that was lost. Let me list a few things.
1) well, when my Dad died, I DID mourn and grieve him so. I was almost more devastated that my children would not know him than for my loss of my father.
But one thing that many children (myself included) of reticent parents regret is not asking their parents more about THEIR lives and decisions and growing up years and wisdom and hopes and dreams. Yes, I wish I could have known him better.

2) One painful family wound of my growing up years was my sister's decision to embrace a foreign strange religion. I know that she does not think of her religion that way. (I'm guessing that to her it makes sense as a religion, or did when she initially embraced it.) But although the tenets of her faith deny it, that belief system IS a denial- of Christ's choice to be a sacrifice; our sinfulness; and of His Divine nature.
My parents were mild, kind parents as far as I know. I don't know that they even tried to dissuade my sister in her choice. They may have been on the defensive when she made that decision. That's because part (most? all?) of her decision to leave Christianity was her realization of  and judgement of the racist attitudes that were a part of our parents' mentality and were generally (non verbally) promoted by the white "Christian" community that we were part of.
It maybe wasn't until later that they realized the magnitude of her choice, and the wrongness of their decision to forbid her from dating a young man who was African American. I say that because the methodists of that day (at least me personally) were not readers of the Bible, which is the foundation of the Christian faith and understanding and the main means through which God speaks to us.