When I was teenager and uptown with my dad getting groceries
one day, we saw three small kids crying in the back seat of a car. It was
terribly hot that day and my dad knew who the kid’s parents were and where they
were. They were in the liquor store drinking. When we came out of the grocery
store, the kids were still there and crying harder. My dad hesitated for a
second and then told me to take the groceries to the car. He went into the
liquor store and that was confusing for me because dad didn’t drink. A few
minutes later dad came out with the couple and he had the man by the arm and he
was shouting at him. They finally got in the car and drove away.
My dad was not a big bruising man; in fact he was anything
but. However when it came to kids and his own kids, he was their champion and
was not afraid to confront people who abused their children. When he died his
estate barely covered his bills and expenses but that was fine with him. He had
never lived to accumulate worldly things. His kids and grandkids fulfilled his
life. Whenever we had a family get- together’s dad was always in his glory.
With eight kids and twenty some grandkids he had, what he saw, as the greatest
legacy any man could possibly have.
I think back over my life and the things I am most proud of
and my family comes front and center. I have been privileged to know many good
families and I sense their pride too. But yet day after day I get letters from
originations that ask for help feeding and clothing starving children. These
are people like my dad trying to do what they can do to help those abused kids.
God bless all of them. But always the question that goes through my mind is why
does this exist and how can people not feed and clothe their own kids? How many
people today will sit on a bar stool and suck down a three dollar beer or a
five dollar drink, feeding their own selfish whims while their kids go without.
No one wants to be the beginning and the end of an era in
your family tree. No one wants to think that their influence in their family’s
history will go to the grave with them. Rather we want to think that we served
as a good example, while we here, to help form the lives of our kids and
grandkids. There is no greater award in life then to be remembered as a good
father, grandfather and husband. To be emulated and appreciated. All to soon
our generation will pass away and a new one will take the reigns. We hope and
pray they will have learned from our examples and our mistakes and that they
will have the God given common sense to know the difference.
I wish I had a looking glass that would let me know how
those little kids in that car, that hot day in my home town, turned out.
Hopefully their parents had a change of heart and realized how precious those
kids were to them and how wrong they were to do what they did. I pray that those
kids grew up to be good people who would never do to their kids, what was done
to them but I also hope my dads actions made a difference and they learned as
they got older to love and respect their parents.
No comments:
Post a Comment