Inside a father's heart....

Our dad wrote for numerous magazines, newspaper columns and wrote a book that was a 6 week study for a middle school in Florida. I was reading through them and laminating them a couple years ago and came across one that touched me and brought back memories. I felt compelled to post it :)

10/27/1986

"Isn't it remarkable how different things become when your children trot off to begin another school year? They cram all their supplies into tote bags or backpacks, yell "bye" on their way out, and unfailingly slam the door as a symbolic exclamation point that proclaims that summer and all its noises are all but over. It leaves in its wake a stillness that is almost uncomfortable.

After the bus picks them up and rumbles away, you begin your annual re-adjustment phases. You look at the black television screen and realize you'll have to get used to not hearing some yoyo yelling, "Cretina Moroni, come on down!" Well, no sweat here. However, it might take a bit more effort getting used to a telephone that doesn't ring a dozen times a day, youngsters honking their car horns in my driveway or pounding on the door, or spending a great deal of time trying to explain why chickens don't have teeth to my daughter. After all, who wouldn't miss that?

As the first day wears on, you begin to dwell on the changes that transpired over the summer. There were a few at my house. My 16 year old son (Misty note--this would be Jeff), besides discovering that girls are something he shouldn't have spent so much time ignoring, had his first summer job. That allowed him to buy his school clothes and supplies, and provide him with funds which were used to convince girls that his previous lack of interest in them was directly related to partial blindness and temporary insanity.

My daughter (Misty note--this would be me), on the other hand, spent a large portion of the summer mastering the fine art of riding a boys bike and raising 40 frying chickens. Both projects weren't without their problems. When she wasn't dismounting her bike by way of flying headfirst over the handlebars and giving our dog a phobia by running into him so often, she somehow caught a chicken's head in the door of the chicken house and had to nurse another back to health that came up lame. To her credit, though, she accepted her injuries and those of her chickens with equal concern. The abrasions on her elbows and knees were no more important than her chicken's sore head. Somewhere, I suppose, there's a child psychologist who can explain all that.

Eventually, you get up and address your time and energies to projects that were too difficult or impossible to tackle when the kids were home all day. I pulled up to my typewriter and quickly discovered that I was unable to put black on white. I drew a blank. Words, sentences and paragraphs were miles beyond my grasp. All the light bulbs inside my head were turned off.

Then it hit me right between the eyes! Nobody was interrupting me. I was concentrating more on when and how I'd be interrupted than on my planned project. I'd spent all summer being sidetracked by such annoyances as fixing bike tires, putting band aides on scrapes and abrasions, inspecting one chicken with a headache and another with a limp, dispensing postage stamps to my son in order for him to send letters to girls who were once nondescript objects in his life, and settling perfectly silly disputes. Suddenly, I was being forced to adjust again to uninterrupted silence. To be honest, that took awhile.

Finally,. all the summer noises and aggravations notwithstanding, you realize that the house seems terribly lonely. You actually miss your children and their methods of getting in your hair. You know they'll be home again in a few hours, yet things don't seem exactly right without them being around to monopolize your time and attention. The bike stands beside the porch like something disappointed because there's nobody upon whom it can inflict injuries, the "jambox" in my son's room isn't blasting out songs so wild and indecipherable they sound as though they were recorded inside a lunatic asylum, and the telephone hangs limply as though thankful for the rest. What should be perfect peace is an awkward peace. It's almost like weathering one storm and waiting for the next one to hit.

After some though, you realize that the attention-getting devices employed by your children, be they negative or positive, are vital ingredients that form the bond of love between parents and children. They seek your attention and involvement in their lives in a variety of both pleasant and unpleasant ways, and you strive to consciously and instinctively to meet their needs. Most children will not allow their parents to drift too far away from them. They'll find ways to pull them back. When parents recognize and accept those tactics, a happy relationship is kept intact. Actually, that's what family is really about. Where closeness abounds, there is little room for negatives to invade and destroy.

Having said that, I have but a couple more thing to say.

Hurry home, kids, I'm sitting here waiting for you.

I've missed you."


Most articles my dad wrote were very political and about various government rights.  He would throw a few here and there about his family


Reading this let me have a piece of him that I didn't get to see much growing up.  The side of him that shows he loved his kids.  Don't get me wrong, he was our dad and I know he loved us but as a southern man, he had a hard time showing it.  Plus, when you are sick all the time you tend to take it out on those closest to you.  I get that now.   This article is hanging on my computer room wall as a reminder.  A reminder of the love of a father and a reminder of who is waiting for me in heaven.


And as I read this article, I read that last couple lines again and again "Hurry home, kids, I'm sitting here waiting for you. I've missed you." ...and I can't help but believe he is in heaven saying those exact same words.

Dad and I on my first day of 1st grade.