If there is a universal complaint from men about their fathers, it is that their dads lacked patience. I remember one rainy day when I was about six and my father was putting a new roof on his mother’s house, a dangerous job when it’s dry, much less wet. I wanted to help. He was impatient and said no. I made a scene and got the only spanking I can recall. He had chuckled at that memory many times over the years, but I never saw the humor.
Only now that I’ve struggled to find patience in myself when Matthew insists he help me paint the house or saw down dead trees in the back yard am I able to see that day through my father’s eyes. Who’d have guessed I’d be angry with my father for 30 years, until I relived similar experiences with my own son, who, I suppose, is angry now with me.
More surprisingly, contrary to my teen-age conviction that I wasn’t at all like my father, I have come to the greater realization. I am very much like him. We share the same sense of humor, same stubbornness, same voice even. Although I didn’t always see these similarities as desirable, I have grown into them, come to like them.
My father, for instance, has this way of answering the phone. “Hellll – o, he says, putting a heavy accent on the first syllable and snapping the “o short. Call me today and you’ll hear “Hellll – o, just like the old an. Every time I hear myself say it, I feel good.
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