My Father, My Hero

"I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom."
-Umberto Eco

Tonight I am thankful for all that my father taught me, here and there, now and then throughout my childhood.

Just this week I have been thinking of times he and I spent together.

I remember going to town with him in the grain truck, more than once, to take a load to the Wanham elevators. That was in the day of no booster seats or seat belts so I do remember bouncing around on the seat beside him and looking up at him.

I remember watching him work in the shop south of the house, fixing tools, using the bellows to make the coals hotter. I loved to poke through his trays and boxes of odds and sods he kept there. Sometimes he let me sort and tidy.

I remember him lifting me up to see the robin's nest tucked into a tool hanging on the outside wall of the shop.

I remember learning to make egg foo yung and cheese souffle with him the winter I was in 10th grade. He was a patient teacher.

Tonight I am thankful that I had the opportunity to learn from him and somewhat sad that he isn't here to thank.

"He promised us that everything would be okay. I was a child, but I knew that everything would not be okay. That did not make my father a liar. It made him my father."
-Jonathan Foer