My Father

The text below is drawn primarily from the opening dedication in my most recent book, “Crossroads.” I have modified the text for Father’s Day, 2019.

“To Dad:

You were always the most important person, whether you knew it or not; pleasing you and disappointing you were the two greatest joys and fears of my young life. I learned so much from you, both from your constant attention when I was little and from just observing you in later years. You are my hero, and not because you played a sport for a few years when you were a young man. It was all the things you did when you were not playing sports that made you my hero.

Your oldest son wanted to make you proud, or perhaps prove some things to you and himself — accomplished fathers sometimes have sons who burn with a desire to be accomplished too. So your son spent many years setting a goal, working toward it, reaching it, then casting it aside for another, one mountain top after another. He became a scholarship athlete in two different sports and is the only person in our school’s history to have been a member of conference championship teams (the Southwest or Southeast Conferences) in football and baseball. Only he has those two championship rings. Nobody other than your oldest son knows this, and he actually stumbled upon it while researching a story and was shocked and surprised by the fact. So much for athletic achievement and the notoriety that goes or does not go with it. Notoriety is cheap and fleeting, as you and your oldest son have both learned. And this is just one reason those two rings have sat in a jewelry box unworn for almost thirty years.

When sports ended for him, your oldest son went on to law school and became a lawyer. He needed another challenge, and he wasn’t quite certain yet what he wanted to do with his life. He found his greatest challenge when he earned a commission as a Marine Corps officer and served his country in the wars of the new 21st century. He eventually became a Marine Corps Colonel. Your son served his country as a federal prosecutor in the Department of Justice. He prosecuted terrorists. He lived all over the country. He went to places all over the globe. And he constantly felt like he could still do more. He was never satisfied that he had done enough. There was — and there still is — this voice that arises from somewhere inside, that tells him he is capable of more. Even now. Even today.

I think maybe your oldest son did all of this because for many years he was subconsciously trying to outdo you, to match you. Maybe even surpass you, in different ways. He would show you. And he would show all those shallow masses who masqueraded — and still do — as people who care about you because you were good at a game when you were a very young man. A lot of these people defined you by a mere sliver of your life that you never even looked back on.

Then after many years your oldest son finally woke up one day and asked himself why he had been doing all this for so long. He realized he had nothing to prove to you, nor anybody else for that matter; your oldest son had imposed all of this on himself. Yet, he has been operating like this for about forty years, and no matter how hard your oldest son tries, he can’t seem to stop. And he likely won’t. It’s who he is now. The only person left for your oldest son to prove anything to is himself.

This realization began to form after your son received a Father’s Day email from you in June, 2009, when he was in Iraq and deployed away from his family for the first time. I used to have a printed out copy, but I’ve long since lost it in one of the innumerable moves we made while I was on active duty. But I remember what it said.

“Happy Fathers Day to you too. I’m sure you’re thinking about Patty and the boys today and you miss them. But just remember that we all miss you too.

Look, I know how you’re wired, but do me a favor and don’t volunteer for anything. Don’t take any unnecessary risks. Heroes never intend to be heroes before the heroic thing happens. Remember everything that you have to lose back home.

By all means, do your job, do what is required of you. Do your duty. But just remember this son: You don’t have anything left to prove to anyone. You certainly don’t have anything to prove to me. To the extent you ever needed to prove anything to anyone — including yourself — you’ve already done it ten times over. So just be careful.”

That was it. A father asking his son to be careful.

People like to sugar coat things. They only put forward the absolute best face on everything, whether in public, on social media, or anywhere else. Those of you who have read anything I’ve written know that I’m not like that. I try to tell the unvarnished truth, good or bad.

I have a younger brother and sister, and we all view our father through mostly similar, but at times totally different prisms. I was the first-born child, I was the oldest son, and like him, I was an athlete — by his own admission, a better one in a few other sports— and we did not always see eye to eye on a lot of things, in sports and otherwise. We butted heads more times than I can remember, and there are things that happened between the two of us that not even my mother or siblings know about. So I think I had a much different relationship with my father than my brother and sister did, in many ways.

Honestly, my father was a hard man, at times, an impenetrable enigma I could not understand. At other times, he was as warm a person as I ever knew. He had a great sense of humor and was an outstanding story teller. He could be loving in many ways that might not go openly noticed. And he was capable of physical displays of love and affection too. For instance, when I was little, I remember every summer when he left for NFL training camp in July, he would wrap me up and hug me and tell me he loved me, and to be good to my mother and siblings. My siblings and I never doubted for one minute that our father loved us deeply and fiercely.

He was a great teacher on the things he knew something about, but when it became clear I knew more, he would back off and get out of my way. When I was a kid — all the way through high school almost — he constantly harassed me about my grades because he had not finished college, but when it crystallized to him that he didn’t need to look over my shoulder anymore, he stopped even asking me about what my grades were. I could go on and on about this into several other examples, but I think you get the idea.

I mention just a few of these things because I don’t want anyone to misinterpret what I am saying here. My father was a great son, brother, husband, father, neighbor, citizen, friend, and Christian. But he was hard on me, at least during my formative years. But I’m glad he was hard on me, because I’m pretty certain if he had ever let up, I would’ve never climbed any of those mountains. And I wouldn’t be wired the way I am.

All things considered, I’ll take the outcome.

It’s funny the the things that come to mind when you have only your memories.

To those of you who are left with memories, remember. To those of you who can still speak with your father, just a humble suggestion; speak with him today. No texts, no emails; speak with your Dad.

Happy Fathers Day.

Glen Hines is the author of three books that make up the Anthology Trilogy — Document, Cloudbreak, and Crossroads — available at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. His writing has appeared in Sports Illustrated, Task & Purpose, and the Human Development Project.