The Christian

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A few years later when Michael graduated, he came to my father asking for advice on college, and my father told him he should go to a non-religious university.  He gave him other advice, steering him away from majoring in English in favor of business, and he offered to help with applying for scholarships, but the thing was Michael had been a straight A student, and on top of that had already fulfilled several internships and was a state finalist in wrestling, and he had full rides thrown at him, and he took the one he wanted, to a Christian university out in California.  Now, I’m not saying my father was disappointed.  I don’t think he got that way.  But he never went out there to visit him, either, and when he came home with a tan, my father never got in deep with him on what he was studying since it had come to his attention that Michael had changed his major to theology.

Then it came my turn, and I hadn’t been a straight A student, and I hadn’t applied myself the way Michael had, and when I went to my father for advice, he gave me the same thing.  “You should go to a non-religious university,” he said, although he must have known that the church — his church — offered quite a substantial grant to any of its members who applied to a state-run affiliated university, of which there were many.  And that, with B’s and C’s, that was my best shot.  I wasn’t interested in theology — I wanted to major in accounting, possibly to go into law school.  I told him all this, and he didn’t budge.  “Listen, I can’t help you, son.  I’d be glad to help you look for grants or scholarships, and I’d be glad to go through all the paperwork with you — I know how mind-numbing that can be — but you’re going to have to find the money somewhere else, you understand?”

I ended up going to the local community college and working nights as a grill man at a diner to pay it off while living at home, and he didn’t seem to mind.  Two years of that, and my grades were substantially better, and I got into University without too much trouble on a state grant, with the church picking up the rest.  When I told my father what I was doing, he said that was fine.  I guess there are ways around everything.

My Uncle Don died from leukemia while I was away, and I was able to complete my finals ahead of time and leave early to be with the family.  My Uncle had been a lifelong bachelor, and since both my grandparents were long dead, it fell to my father to make the arrangements.  Naturally, the church offered to host the funeral, but my father deferred and had it at the funeral home, insisting on a non-religious service consisting of his eulogy followed by testimonials of his colleagues and friends, many of them members of the church, including Barry, our pastor.  There was no procession to the grave.  No committal.  My uncle was buried alone.

I drove home with my brothers afterward, and Todd began deriding my father.  Uncle Don had been his favorite person, we both knew.  Todd had once told us that when we were too small to remember, that Don had said he could turn off the lights in his bedroom and get into bed before it got dark, and he had said, Here, watch, and had flicked the lights off and gotten into bed, and Todd had turned the lights back on to discover him there. Todd had said how could he prove he had done it when it was dark, and Uncle Don had said how he could prove he hadn’t?

I had loved my Uncle Don, too, and the thought of him going into the ground alone, that chilled me, and it put a damper on my relationship with my father, but I never said anything about it because their world — my father’s world and my Uncle’s and mother’s world — that was still foreign to me.  I wouldn’t get there for another four years.  Not until I got married.

My father didn’t come to my wedding, which was held at the church, but he came to the reception and congratulated Sarah and I and put a large check in our purse, and he said, of course, that his house was our house and that if we ever had any problems, that he would take care of them.  And he had kissed my wife knowing, I think, that she was pregnant, and he had winked at me and smiled and gone and sat with our mother.  He danced with my wife, and I danced with my mother and her mother, and it was a splendid evening with my whole family there, and I did not see them all together again until the baptism of my son ten months later.

My father, of course, did not come to the baptism, but he met us for dinner afterward, and we had a moment alone on the patio of the restaurant, and he congratulated me again on all that I had accomplished.

“Son,” he said, “It seems like everything’s going right for you.  One of these times — and we had a few ourselves, your mother and I — where you just can’t step wrong.”

“Yeah,” I said, “The Lord has really blessed me.”  Now, I said this to get a rise out of him, I’ll admit it.  I knew how he felt.  And I’m ashamed of myself for doing it.  Why, I wouldn’t have blamed him for calling me out on it, or for leaving right then.  But he stood there saying nothing, then he nodded and laughed that laugh that could have stopped the Cold War, and put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed.

I guess ignoring jabs like that — familial ones that hit below the belt — that’s another job of a father.

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