Reply #25: My father taught me many lessons. Good and bad.

[proteus_lives]

He taught me how to live my life by example.

He taught me by doing the right thing and by doing the wrong thing.

When I was a small child, I worshiped him. He was tall, commanding, when he spoke people listened, when he a mean look in his eye, people got the hell out of the way. Between the ages of birth and ten I thought he made the sun rise and set.

But then two things happened, I started growing up and the stars left my eyes. He was cruel, abusive (to himself and his loved ones)for every strength there was a weakness, for every noble trait there was a horrifying evil.

So as I entered my teenage years, I hated him and clashed him at every turn. He come in and out of my life and it was usually bad.

Then he fell apart. He retired and that brought him no happiness. Give my father a task and he'll accomplish it, he'll batter through every obstacle in the way until he reaches his goal (He proved this in war, business and his personal life). But with idle hands? He despairs and starts lashing out. He started boozing and doing drugs again. (Habits he left behind in the 70s.) The doctors told him in 1989 that he'd be dead by 1991. He lost it and my mom left him. (It's 2010 and he's still here. Doctors, pffh.)

My mom took my sisters with her. And for reasons I'm still not totally able to articulate, I stayed with my dad. Those two and half years it was just me and him were....a journey to say the least. I'll not speak of it here.

My relationship with him reached the low point when I started college and he hit bottom. That's when he surprised me again. He taught me another lesson. A person can change if they truly want to.

He stopped with the drugs, he stopped with the booze and he started confronting the issues that had haunted him his whole life. He stopped being off-on-again with my mom and told her he needed her back all the way. He proved this by doing something he had never done before. He made himself completely vulnerable to another human being. Body, soul, mind and wallet. His resolve worked and he and my mom begun their own hard road back. Eventually I would stand as his best man in their re-wedding.

And I learned of his own horrific childhood, the ordeal of Vietnam, the drugs, the booze and the things that were not excuses but reasons. When we laid it all out I learned one of the most important lessons. No matter how much pain you're in or how angry you are, it's not right to lay it on or take it out on another person. I vowed then and there not to repeat the mistakes of my father and grandfather.

Now, as a man I realized my father wasn't a angel, he wasn't a demon. He was a man who won many victories, did many good things and also made many mistakes and did his share of evil.

Several years ago I realized that I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the man who I once thought was as tall as a mountain.

A few months ago when he helped me figure out a financial issue, I realized I still had a lot to learn from him.

When I helped him after his last trip to the hospital and he got out of the car and stumbled and I helped him to the house. As I put his arm over my shoulder and lifted, I thought "He needs me now."

We still have our flare-ups. We always will but now he's willing and able to stay things like "I was wrong" or "I'm sorry" Things that 20 years ago wouldn't passed his lips even if he was on fire.

He's my father. I see him every time I look in the mirror.

The most important things he taught me.

1. Everything a man does/says/thinks comes down to two things, love and fear.

2. Rage will make you powerful but it always consumes you in the end.

3. It's never wrong to ask for help or ask a question.

4. Trust but verify.

5. Never break your word.

6. If you can't laugh at yourself, you can't laugh at anyone.

7. Hard work pays off.

8. Never up give up your voice, your guns or someone you love.

9. Always keep a spare $20 in your boot.

10. A man should always carry a spare set of socks.

11. Always look a man in the eye.

I've left a lot out. There isn't enough time or space here to write it all down.

At the end of the day, I love my father. He's there for me and I'm there for him.