I was reminiscing about what my mother and grandmother taught me (Wrapping the Garden), but during the process failed to give my dad his due. If I was behaviorally similar to anyone—including my cliff-jumper Aries personality, it was to him—a fellow Aries. My mother jokingly swore I was his actual birth-child because we were so similar in attitude and demeanor.
From him I learned that nothing is impossible if you dive in head-first and just get after it; and of course he thought that I could do whatever he could do. And since he thought he could do just about anything that he put his mind to doing, I believed that I could do it also—and still do.
My dad was a workhorse. Working two jobs or sixteen-hour work days was not unusual from the time I joined the family until he eventually passed due to pancreatic cancer in his eighties. If he wasn’t driving or fixing his grain trucks, or part-time farming, or even playing men’s Dad’s Club basketball in his ‘50’s, he was showing me how to catch and throw a softball or a basketball and he attended my softball games—even as an assistant coach for a couple years.
In the fix-it shop, as a young kid I was his third-arm: his go-fer—his tool hander—his shingle cutter—his tractor chauffeur for grain and hay wagons—his yard mow-er—his seed-corn sack toter—his “hold this steady”er for welding large items—his “whatever I need when I’m under this car, hand it to me” person.
In other words, I was the family’s only child who tried to meet everyone’s needs—both mom’s and dad’s.
But from hanging with dad who tended to view me as “his assistant” rather than as a little girl you had to be so careful with, I learned carpentry, mechanics, roofing, plumbing (sort of), farming, and how to bounce around in his big trucks when he went on grain runs around the state.
He opened a ‘mechanical repair and gas station’ when I was away at college; and then I became his ‘holidays and summer help’ to pump gas, sell snacks and write up the work orders for all fix-it clients—even replaced a few spark plugs and did oil changes for him during that time. He and I worked Thanksgivings and Christmases, even New Year’s Day to give the rest of his staff the day off, so I never had to wonder what I’d be doing on those holidays away from school. I’d be working with dad.
When I graduated, I told him I’d work full-time for him for two years to repay him for helping me pay for college so I didn’t have to rack up big debt. Then I became his Assistant Manager of the business and handled the books also as mom’s health was deteriorating by then.
He was basically a good-natured guy—tried to help his lower-income clients, and always treated everyone fairly and with integrity. We argued occasionally as two strong-willed Aries working together will, but overall we worked well together as long as I remembered who was the ultimate boss in the matter; but even then, we were more like co-partners in the mechanical/gas-station endeavor than as the ‘protective father/delicate daughter’. He valued my opinion on business matters, even if he didn’t take it.
So for ALL of us, when we contemplate WHO we are as individuals, there are many factors for us to consider: some are inherited, some are learned from our family environments, and some we may have initiated ourselves from a deep-seated longing to inquire and discover more about the world around us—as we were always trying to determine HOW we fit into that strange and somewhat perplexing mass of humanity that we inhabit, along with HOW we fit into Nature’s plan for supporting our continued existence here.
Without a doubt, life isn’t easy, nor is it without complications and complexities when family units are concerned.
Just keep this in mind: We are WHO we are for many reasons. But we can BE whoever we wish to BE primarily through our personal determination to be that person.
So BE determined.
FINDING YOUR TRUTH 