In honor of Father’s Day, Alamo City Moms Blog is bringing you a series of posts written by local dads about topics related to fatherhood.
I became a father on a snowy Sunday in February, 1980. The Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, had started several days earlier. Eric Heiden won five individual gold medals. In 1972 Mark Spitz had to count relay victories among his seven gold medals, so Eric set a record for gold medals that stands today. The U.S. hockey team won the “miracle on ice.” The nursing staff was distracted by the preliminary competition in figure skating and finals of women’s downhill skiing. Patti and I were focused on a very long labor and minor medical complications. Like surgery, a “minor” complication is one that happens to someone else.
Looking out the window of the fifth floor of the McMillan wing of Barnes Hospital we could see a large lawn between the street and the parking lot. Someone had written “Lisa,” in giant letters in the snow. I knew a Lisa or two, but we had already settled on some version of “Christy.” When she came later that day, life changed forever. Our internal focus on life turned outwards. We started having second thoughts about another glass of wine because we might need to get up in the middle of the night, and we had real responsibilities to another person. And we started caring as much or more about another person’s successes and failures than our own. Three sons later, being a father has been challenging, demanding, fun, exciting, frustrating, funny, and many other things. But life without those experiences would not have been nearly as rewarding. I am sure my children can point to mistakes I made as a father. I can only hope that the memories of the good experiences we had can outweigh those recollections.
Inescapably, reflecting on experiences as a father leads me to recall my own father. I think of him nearly every day. What was it like to go off to war at age 22 and sail thousands of miles from home? What was it like to ride a horse to school or take a train trip 200 miles to the big city with another friend at age 14? Am I as good of a Dad as he was? I always admired and respected him. He set very high goals for us. At the time I thought some were unreasonable. I know better now. I appreciated how he was always ready to help, reluctant to intrude. One of the greatest gifts he gave me was the way he treated his grandchildren—with unconditional love, humor, and the same calm, strict attitude I knew as a child. He was willing to let us make our own mistakes, but made sure that we owned them as well. I have measured most of my personal and professional accomplishments against the standards he set. Sometimes I even met them.
To all those other dads, happy Father’s Day.
Tom is a father to four grown children and grandfather to four under the age of five. He splits his time between St. Louis, Missouri and Fort Worth, Texas. He enjoys golf, fishing, and is in a constant search for the perfect $15 bottle of everyday wine. After practicing law for more than 40 years, he has mental outlines for a couple of best selling legal thrillers that he will write in his retirement… when that day finally comes.
