Father�s Day

I was in a drug store a week ago, buying a graduation card for my nephew. I noticed all of the father�s day cards and it suddenly hit me. I no longer have a father. I have no one to send a card to. I nearly lost it right there in the store.

It has been six months since Dad�s passing and while I think of him daily, the realization that he is no longer somewhere where I can talk to him or sit with him or see him smile hasn�t totally sunk in. He was always a presence in my life even when he wasn�t around so much so that I took it for granted he�d always be there.

Growing up, he was the typical male of his generation. Mom did most of the day-to-day parenting�cooking, cleaning, shopping, family bookkeeping and tending to the needs of her six sons, despite having a fulltime job herself�while he went to work, brought home a paycheck and pretty much pursued his own interests. In today�s eyes while that might seem like emotional distance, and to some degree it was, it was merely the rigid and all-too-limiting roles that men and women were locked into in those days. As I grew into adulthood and we related to one another as adults, he was able to be more expressive with his love and got more involved in our lives.

But for him, growing up poor and Black in Dallas, TX, during the Depression, the eldest of four kids, he was of that generation that expected little but achieved a lot through hard work, perseverance and making the most of every opportunity. When the nuns at his high school offered a scholarship in physical education to a Catholic university, he accepted it, not because that was what he wanted to study, but because that was the only way he was going to get to college.

When World War II broke out, despite the fact that the armed services were as segregated as the rest of American society, he and thousands of other Black men and women answered the call to serve. When it ended, and the government thanked servicemen by offering college scholarships through the G.I. Bill, he again took advantage of the opportunity and got his masters degree.

Those experiences laid the perfect foundation for his work running community centers in three cities, working as a school teacher and district administrator, serving on numerous boards and heading or founding countless volunteer organizations, building a respected position as a community leader.

We used to have a family expression, �They don�t make rules for Dad.� Not our dad. Signs that said, �Keep Out� or �Authorized Personnel Only� were meant for someone else. He didn�t ask permission to do things, he just did them. He didn�t spend time complaining about how life wasn�t fair or some �ism� was preventing him from getting ahead. He just quietly found a way around those obstacles.

I bear a slight resemblance to my father and share his vocal intonations and speech patterns. I have many of his mannerisms and some of his habits. Those are things I either inherited genetically or learned through imitation. But I also learned many things through observation, not the least of which is not to complain when faced with adversity. Just put your head down and keep plugging away and somehow you work your way though any problem. That�s what Dad would have done.

Considering that many of my peers grew up either not knowing their fathers or having strained relations with them, I am fortunate to have had mine alive for as long as I did. Continuing on without him, I am all the more appreciative for the time we shared.

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The photo above was probably taken around 1959 or 1960, at my oldest brother�s First Holy Communion. Dad is with my four older brothers (from right to left), Rupert III, Charles, Stanley and Gregory. If I was born by then, I was probably somewhere with Mom and a bottle of formula. Younger brother Neil was still two years away.