Archive for the ‘Legacy’ Tag
Touching moment recognized
Filed under: Memories | Tags: Blessings, Children, Legacy, Love
Leave a Comment So Ten says to me, “Dad, when you hold Twelve and make her go to sleep…it’s pretty!”
Blown away by a six-year-old’s observation.
It’s good for your daughter to see a man in a tender situation.
I’m glad she saw…glad she recognized tenderness.
I hope she files that away until the time she starts looking for a man of her own.
Isn’t life good?
My best job description
Filed under: Reflection | Tags: Legacy, Children, Big Family, Boot Camp for the Real World
Leave a Comment I’ve had many job descriptions over the years.
They were usually a far cry from reality.
But this Father’s Day I received a Facebook message from One that read, “Happy Dad’s day, father! Thanks for always fixing stuff, cooking stuff, paying for stuff and takin care of business. Love ya!”
Fixing stuff…cooking stuff…paying for stuff…and taking care of business.
My job description…for better or for worse…right-on reality!
The best job description I’ve ever had because it is the most accurate.
Put on my tombestone…fine with me.
The only part that’s vague is the taking care of business…hopefully that includes helpful life lessions.
Peeking into the future
Filed under: God, Memories, Reflection | Tags: Blessings, Children, God, Hope, Legacy, Love
Comments (1) The Daddy-Daughter dance finally arrived.
My date (Nine) looked beautiful.
Counting the minutes til we departed she asked me every few minutes, “is it time yet?”
We were one of the first couples to arrive….check in…coat check…photo session…dinner then dancing.
We danced every dance…I should say she danced every dance.
Every time there was a chain dance with all the little girls forming a line snaking through the dance floor she excused herself to join the line.
Next dance there she was holding out her hand for me to dance with her.
Fast dances…slow dances…she was my partner.
Not like the other girls who avoided their fathers all night…my partner was the perfect date.
And in those moments I had a glimpse into the future…at the amazing young woman who was stirring inside her…beautiful both inside and out.
This was so much more than a father-daughter event…it was the unwrapping of a layer of childhood that will never be a part of her again…and a peek at the woman wrapped inside…who will one day bloom and blossom as a spectacular work of beauty, charm and grace.
How blessed am I that I can be the one peeling back this layer.
How blessed am I than I’ve had this privilege before.
How blessed am I that I have the honor of not just unwrapping God’s precious gift to us but to help shape the emerging woman inside.
We know the that the pattern for her future husband molded by a young girl’s relationship with her father.
What an awesome responsibility…one that I can only venture into with daily prayer and guidance from God…for she belongs to Him and my role is that of steward of His precious possessions.
I danced every dance with her that night but I know there will come a day when the other man of her dreams will tap me on the shoulder and ask for the next dance.
I know God has already selected him…that he will walk with God and will love and cherish her almost as much as I do and just a little less than God does.
Thank you for this night…thank you for this child-woman-to-become…thank you for the responsibility.
I pray that I may live lone enough to love her children.
I am truly blessed.
Reverse parenting
Sounds like something the famous child psychologist Dr. Spock could come up with.
Actually, I coined the phrase.
It refers to a condition in which the child treats the parent the way the parent has always treated the child.
Reverse parenting…simple.
Actually it is very touching.
I drove Three back to school for a meeting and to pick up her car.
As I was leaving for home she said, “Now text me when your home safe!”
Choke and double-choke!
My words exactly.
Only usually said to the single digits.
I’ve often said the highest form of compliment is to hear your signature words and phrases uttered from your loved one’s moth.
When you experience that beautiful sound and it is an expression of concern for your own welfare…well that’s a compliment squared!
Yes, honey, I did make it home safely…and yes it did text…late, just like you!
I am blessed.
Personal mission statement
I’m part of a men’s discipling group at our church.
It is a three-year commitment to grow spiritually through daily bible reading, bi-weekly teaching, participation in an accountability group, prayer, study of contemporary Christian literature, and serious scripture memorization.
It is not for the faint of heart.
I am delighted to be a part of it.
I believe God manipulated my circumstances to get me to this place.
Its like being selected to attend the best grad school in the world.
Come to think of it…I think it is the best grad school in the world.
As part of the course we need to craft a personal mission statement.
Harder than it sounds.
I came up with some doozies but I realized I was trying to create a mission statement that just sounded good.
I ended up with one that cuts to the chase on everything!
I want to be part of God’s plan and to bring Him glory by becoming a fully functioning follower of Christ.
Another 15 minutes of fame
Andy Warhol coined the phrase, “15 minutes of fame”.
It’s an expression that refers to the fleeting condition of celebrity in the eye of the media then passes on to the next celebrity.
Your mother and I were runner’s up by our local newspaper as Villager’s of the Year.
We were beat out the new police chief.
All he did was cut serious crime by 28%.
I guess that trumps being parents to 75 foster children over the past 18 years.
There’s no check involved…just glory.
Thanks to our friends at the local newspaper for noticing.
The real joy comes from the privilege of being able to step up to the plate when your number is called.
To show God’s love to the least of His children.
Thanks for the opportunity.
A day for the record books!
Filed under: Memories, Uncategorized | Tags: Big Family, Legacy, Together Time
Leave a Comment Beautiful Fall day – was supposed to rain but it didn’t.
Did the Frank Lloyd 5K with Ten and Eleven in the jogger. Shaved a minute off our previous time!
Watched Three run the 10K
Dressed like penguins and went to the zoo.
Sat in the sun with a beer watching the bears play.
Our neighbors won the costume contest – first place – second year in a row!
Came home to celebrate Three’s 22nd birthday surrounded by almost all of our lovedones.
Watched the sun set from the front porch.
Making memories – feeling loved.
One of the last beautiful days in 2009.
Put this day in the record books.
Reverse Cat’s Cradle
Filed under: Memories | Tags: Children, Legacy, Together Time
Leave a Comment This sounds like a special cr
ochet stitch.
Actually it is about the 1974 hit song by Harry Chapin. In fact it was his only hit but it made an impression on me and guided my fathering style.
You can read about “Cat’s in the Cradle” (the real name of the song) in Wikipedia or see Harry perform it live here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlHdjjHNEC8
Well, the song is a ballad about a man who has a son. Harry sais it was written about his son, Josh, and that the song scared him to death.
The man is busy climbing the corporate ladder. So every time the son wants to do something like play ball, the father is too busy. The boy says when you coming home, Dad? The dad says I don’t know when but we’ll get together then, we’ll have a good time then. The boy says I’m gonna be just like him.
Well, after a lifetime of missed opportunities, the son does grow up to be just like his father and when his retired father wants to get together with his son, he gives the same excuses his father gave, adding that we’ll get together soon and have a good time then. It occurs to Harry that his son had grown up to be just like him.
For me this song was so prophetic. What could be worse than coming to the end of your life and realizing you had squandered it on the wrong things. Talk about the servant who buried his one talent.
Well I chose a different path. When our older children were young I always took off work to go on the field trips (the only dad). I coached sixty seasons of soccer, baseball, softball and soccer. I never missed a recital, even if one of the kids had just two words to say.
And I never regretted it.
Today, I have an opportunity to do it all over again. And God has made sure I wouldn’t think my dues were already paid.
Yet sometimes I feel like Harry, only in reverse.
My “never thought I’d do that” list
Filed under: Memories, Reflection | Tags: Change, Legacy, Work
Leave a Comment I’ve started a “never thought I’d do that list” and I’m going to make it a page on this blog so I can add to it from time to time like my other lists. I am imagining a conversation with myself (today) with myself around age 18. Back then I didn’t know what I didn’t know and certainly had no clue what was waiting for me just around the corner.
So here goes. The order is only the way the items come to mind – no hierarchy. I can also think of some things that are too personal to add to the list.
My “Never thought I’d do that” list:
- Care for a terminally ill child (on the other hand since we’re all terminally ill – what was I thinking?).
- Have 75 foster children call me Daddy.
- Have 12 children (I have a feeling this one will change).
- Get a vasectomy (yikes).
- Get fired (They said your position is eliminated but would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?)
- Suction bodily fluids from a sick child several times a day.
- Clean up so much barf (mostly not my own).
- Work for the Catholic Church – for a Cardinal Archbishop even.
- Leave my first job.
- Be a CEO.
- Not be a CEO any more.
- Like dark beer.
- Go whitewater rafting.
- See four of my own children be born.
- Realize that both my parents were dead.
- Go through school so many times (with each child).
- Bring home a premature baby.
- Change diapers for 27 years straight.
- Learn to use a pulse-ox machine.
- Go our to a restaurant carrying an oxygen tank on my back (not for me).
- Have three kids in college at one time and no paying job.
A passion for wheels
It started out as a conversation with my son-in-law (2A). He asked me about all the vehicles I had owned. It’s a guy thing you know. Scrat
ching my head I rattled off at least 20 and kept remembering more. He commented that he would like to see photos of those cars some day. Not that I have an album with all my cars and a few motorcycles but thanks to the Internet you can find a photo of just about any car that was ever built in almost any color or stare of repair.
So I created a new blog called www.passionforwheels.wordpress.com
Besides being a wonderful mindcation (a vacation for your mind) down memory lane, it is another chronicle of my life story told through the vehicles I have owned, loved and hated.
So check it out. By the way, the photo is my dream car: a 1965 Ford Mustang ragtop. Not one of my actual vehicles.
