I wrote this letter to my father a few years before he passed away. He was 80. I wanted him to know his impact on me as a child and now grown woman. I often reflect on the values that are passed down through the generations. I am now a grandmother to two young boys and although my father never met them, I know how much he would have loved them and they would have loved him. I encourage you to write your parents a letter. Read it to them and let them hear outlaid how you feel. Put it on your bucket list. You’ll be glad.
My father called me the other day. When it comes to phone conversations my dad, Jim Glenn, is a man of few words. He comes right to the point military Army Colonel style and hangs up when he is finished telling you what he wants to tell you. Brief and to the point. He doesn’t even bother to say good-bye. You realize that he’s hung up when he doesn’t answer your last question. It drives my sister and me crazy. But my father turned 80 just the other day and we know we’ll never change him. During this last one-sided conversation, my father simply said: “Hi, this is Dad. Yesterday I was watching you with Turner doing homework. I wish I’d spent more time with you reading like that. I just wanted you to know that I think you’re a good mother.” I was touched beyond words. I began to tell him just that, but well…”click” he was gone. The conversation was over.
But I know my Dad reads everything I write. So it’s my turn. Hi Dad, this is Lou Anne. I just want to take a moment and tell you that I think you’re a good father. Here’s why, and don’t hang up.
True you were gone a bit during my wonder years serving your country. And no I don’t remember vast amounts of reading time with you. But I do remember other things. Here are some:
While we may not have read much, you fostered a deep love in me for Godly gifts, like animals. I remembered how you took us to a wildlife refuge week after week and taught us about appreciating those wonderful creatures that God had given us. I remember how you could and still can tame any animal with your incredible patience like the wild squirrel who came to you each morning and sat beside y
ou comfortably in the kitchen eating the breakfast you had provided. I remember how you sat up all night with me after I accidently killed my pet bird and was inconsolable. You reassured me over and over that yes, the bird was probably sitting on God’s shoulder as we spoke. You understood. And you taught us to love other things. You made sure we knew how to grow vegetables and properly tend a garden. You forced us to smell every freshly cut rose you brought to us from one of your ten thousand rose bushes and sample the first orange of the season plucked from your prized trees. You were Dr. Doolittle and Mr. Green Jeans and because of you Heaven and nature sang for us.
We may not have read together, but I remember going with you to take clothes to a family who was very poor and I remember you saying that nothing is ever worth putting yourself above someone. Still at the age of 80, you take care of your friends, work hard at your church and fix things for widows. You serve as a surrogate grandfather to your young pastor’s family who loves you so much they named their son after you. Because of you, I am unable to walk past someone who needs something. It simply isn’t done in our family. My first glimpse of Christ was in your face.
Did we read? I don’t remember. I do remember sitting in church with you week after week with your arm around me, while you quietly timed how long I could hold my breath and handed me mints. I remember how you made all of us kids pray on our knees shoulder to shoulder together on the hard floor by our beds. I remember your patience as you listened to my prayer requests for my stuffed animals and dolls and helped me line them up just so, on either side of me so I could sleep.
No Dad, I don’t remember reading very much, but I do remember those crazy Gospel songs you sang and made me sing with you at the top of our lungs and how I awoke on Sunday morning to your “selections” blaring through the house assaulting my more sophisticated ears. Tennessee Ernie Ford singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” give me a break. But when Mom died a few years ago, and we were driving your car home from the hospital, those same songs played on the stereo and we sang them softly together as we d
rove home without her. God sat with us on the front seat, comforting us and we knew it.
I don’t remember reading, but do I remember looking at pictures of you when you served in WWII and later in the Korean War. I remember how you made me salute the Flag of the United States and stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. A Nazi flag sits in my closet to remind me why. If my house ever burns down, lest someone find it among the ashes and think that I am a sympathizer, it is my reminder that you single handedly took it down from its stronghold in Germany after you had helped liberate a Nazi war camp. You personally saw the faces of hope emerge from hell. And just a few weeks ago, we stood alone together in Washington D.C. at the Korean War Memorial. While throngs of tourists surrounded the memorial and guides delivered their rehearsed spiels about the war, you said nothing, because there was nothing to say. You had been there. War is hard to talk about, but your silence told me how hard it really was and my heart broke.
Freedom isn’t free.
No, Dad, we didn’t read much., and time for that is surely running out because soon you will sell our childhood home. It will be our last Thanksgiving and Christmas there. Yes, it’s sad. But don’t look down, Dad, look up. Let me show you something. Let me show you my family.
My house is filled with hamsters and birds and dogs. We feed squirrels and rescue turtles. My children fuss at me for the worship songs I listen to and they lean comfortably against me in church week after week. Your grandson Turner can hold his breath for 30 seconds. We plant butterfly gardens and grow roses and tomatoes and take bids on who gets to pick the first of orange of the season. Lily, the baby squirrel I once rescued returns to my home occasionally to share pistachios with me.
Let me show you something else in case you haven’t noticed: in my home we believe in God the Father and in Jesus Christ. Because of your faith, God lives through two more generations. You raised us up in His way, and now we won’t depart from it. We are your Christian soldiers, marching onward.
And maybe we didn’t read much, but now you read to my children. And the way they run into your arms when they see you says it all.
There are few heroes left Dad, but you’re mine. I thank God every time I think of you. I just wanted to tell you that I think you’re a good father. Make that a great father.
