An overdue conversation with my dad to celebrate Father’s Day

“You keep whittling, dad, I just got some things to talk about,” I say as I pull up a chair from the dining room.

Daddy sits in his favorite chair and keeps at his handiwork. He stops long enough to smile at me, as he peers through his reading glasses.

Ever since I can remember, my father has always worked with his hands. An electrician by trade, even before he stopped working, he was always making something: a shelf for my mom for their anniversary; knife handles out of deer hooves; deer hide Bible covers.

But today, he was working on one of his manger scenes. Taking a dried-out peach pit, dad would split it in half and carefully carve along the top and the sides, to make the pit look like a tiny version of the Nativity. His carving would form the rough outline of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus in a tiny cradle. Sometimes, if the pit were just the right shape, he could also get the Star of Bethlehem on the top.

I could watch him carve his little mangers for hours. But today, I had come to talk about some things. Some things I had not discussed in many years. I didn’t know how quite to begin, so I just started.

“Daddy, I’ve never paid much attention to Father’s Day. I didn’t quite know how I felt about Father’s Day,” I said. “I have not felt worthy of such a day. There are many fathers out there who are much more deserving of a day of celebration. Heck, I’m not even sure if I care about whether people celebrate my birthday anymore, really.”

He just kept carving away, and smiling that wise smile of his.

“But now I see it,” I said. “Now, I realize that I had not really taken the time to look at Father’s Day in a way of honoring you, my own father. How you worked all your life, from when you quit school during the Depression to go to work in the tobacco fields. I didn’t think about the story of how you lied about your age to get the man at the Navy office to let you sign up, so you could leave the tobacco farm and serve your country at the end of World War II.”

You left the service, moved to Roanoke, started working again and then you married mom. Together, you raised three children, and later in life, you started a second career as an evangelist. You were always doing good works for others and working hard to make sure your family had what it needed.”

“Dad, that’s what Father’s Day is all about, in my opinion,” I told him for the first time ever, certainly in the past 31 years. “Father’s Day is the day to pause and reflect on what my own father means to me and what he did to make me who I am today.”

“Thank you son, but you didn’t have to do that,” he said as he put down his carvings and pocket knife. “You are my son and I have always known you loved me. Now you are a father yourself.

Thanks for remembering, but don’t forget you have your sons now and you need to do all you can for them.”

He got up out of his chair reached out and gave me one of his big, strong working man hugs. He looked at me and said, “Happy Father’s Day.”

And he was gone.

This conversation was imaginary. It is a tribute to father, Edward Carl Walker, known to his friends as “Eddie,” He died 31 years ago, in August, 1978.

This Sunday, Father’s Day 2009, take a moment to remember your father. If you are lucky enough to be able to pick up the phone or spend time with him, you owe it to him and to yourself to do it.
Walker’s column appears each Wednesday on the editorial page.