A Father’s Day Reflection

By: Jim Moody, CAE
CSA President

Normally I write something in this space that has some relationship to business. This week, I’m going to stray a bit and write something more personal.

Father’s Day is coming up, and it prompted me to think a bit about my relationship with my dad.

Things didn’t start out so well with the father-son relationship. My dad was an Air Force brat, constantly moving. He had three siblings, and while the family wasn’t dysfunctional, no one would classify it as the model of warmth and love. When dad turned 18, he was expected to leave the nest and make his own way, which he did.

So, when he got married and became a father himself, he didn’t exactly have a lot of good experience to go on. Times were tough economically, and he was focused on putting food on the table. Most often, it took two jobs to make ends meet, so he was tired and cranky. One of his neatest extra jobs was as a volunteer fireman.

Occasionally, he let me ride with him to a fire (something that I’m sure insurance regulations would prohibit today) and we had fun together. Other than that, my early memories are of him not being satisfied with me no matter what I did.
Many men look forward to sharing athletic activities with their sons. I’d put my dad in that camp. Unfortunately, he had to borrow someone else’s son to enjoy that experience. I was too busy reading and studying, and I was clumsy (still am). My mother still has the baseball glove I had from the one year I actually played pee-wee ball. The thumb has a hole in it from where I gnawed on it while standing out in left field, bored as a kid could be.

One of dad’s best friends had a son who was fairly athletic. I was often compared to that kid, Mark, as in “why can’t you (fill in the blank) like Mark?” That ended the day that my dad walked in on Mark and his girlfriend in an exceptionally compromising position during a church youth trip. I’d like to think that today Mark is dirt poor, has numerous children by many different women and is fatter than I am, but I don’t know that to be the case. What I do know is that he never went to college on an athletic scholarship.

Meanwhile, somewhere in there I started to receive accolades for academic accomplishments, and dad began to realize that this studying thing might pay off in the long run for me. He also, through trial and error, mellowed a bit and seemed to enjoy the time we spent together. Instead of making me feel inadequate, he took pride in the things I did well. No one in his family had ever been to college, so when it became clear that scholarships would allow me to go away to school, he began talking about me to his friends in a positive way rather than making excuses for my shortcomings.

Throughout college, he really supported me as a dad should do. Our relationship flourished, and we remain close to this day.

I nearly lost him about seven years ago, when dad was 58. He had an episode of chest pain, went to the doctor and ended up having an emergency quadruple bypass. Turns out his dad dropped dead of a massive heart attack at age 58. (Apparently I only have 17 good years left. Those who love me hope that Lipitor really works.) The doctor told dad that his arterial plaque was the type that if any broke away from the artery, it would kill him before he hit the ground – even if it happened in the hospital.

Since then, I’ve tried to celebrate every day I have with dad. We talk often, and he and my mom come to visit us fairly frequently. They only live two hours away, but it’s been our goal to get them to move close by once dad retires. I just wasn’t sure he’d actually be able to retire. Turns out that his retirement savings and the pension from his employer are more substantial than any of us figured. He’s turned in his notice of retirement for the end of August, and he’s put his house on the market. Last week, he made an offer on a house just under a mile from us, and it was accepted.

I don’t know that there’s a moral to this story. Perhaps it’s so personal to me that there’s no application for anyone else. But if you’ll allow me to preach just a bit, I would like to make two points.

First, your relationship with your dad is worth fighting for. I know that in a family business situation it can be even more difficult to not let “stuff” get in the way of the relationship. Go the extra mile. Don’t live your life without that relationship because the return is worth the investment.

Second, you are not guaranteed another day with your father. Anything could happen to take him away. Some have experienced that this year. Cherish the time you have together and make sure that if today is the last day that you won’t have regrets tomorrow.