Dad set the bar

 

adoptive dad and I

Today is my dad’s(adoptive)  birthday.  I can honestly say that he has been the tree that bends in the wind and still keeps standing through all of my escapades of youth and adulthood.  It was he whom I looked to for unconditional love, no matter who I was or what I did he loved me.  It was he who gave me the knowing of respect for intellect and the ability to respect my own child.

Through all of these decades of knowing my father we have not had the slightest argument or disagreement.  He has had his arms embracing me from the moment I came to America.  

Who is my dad?  German in ethnicity.  From a family of “haves” not have nots.  His eyes smaller, intense and a lighter shade of brown than mine.  His hair was black but now is white with the wisdom of 83 years of age.  A strong build with shoulders that held up through time and seemed to be capable of chopping wood to moving a heavy object or anything else that took physical strength.  A heart that always whispered love for me, nature and beauty.  An accomplished intellectual as a physicist for 30 years.

There has been a bond between us that could never die no matter how far and wide the distance between us.  It started at six years of age with him sitting in a black “Naugahyde” recliner with his feet propped up in the evenings while I sat on his lap watching television sitcoms.  Slowly I would turn to him and say “can I comb your hair?”  He didn’t ponder but had an immediate response of “sure Pushpa.”  I eagerly grabbed the black comb from his front “protector” pocket of his shirt and began combing, combing, combing.  He had beautiful black hair that I could connect to because not too many people had hair that color in my world except for me and my dad.  Opening my middle and index fingers like a pair of scissors, I combed  and snipped as I told him in my high pitched British accent “I am cutting your hair.”  Asking “would you like to look in the mirror and see your haircut?”  His reply being the same “oh yes I am sure it looks great Pushpa.”  He let me play like this for a couple of half hour sitcoms and as for me I became increasingly closer due to his patience and ability to play along. 

This man was not my blood but he has always been my dad without question.

During elementary school and middle school we spent summer vacations backpacking in the mountains of Northeastern Oregon.  It was he who stood there while I cried and struggled to make it up the hills carrying my belongings on my back while calmly he breathed the words “you can do it”.  I still to this day recall this vivid memory when I do things that are taxing  and seem beyond my abilities.  While my mother left me on the trail sobbing and with a look of disgust as her piercing blue eyes and pointed nose darted over her shoulder, my father said “oh Shirley, I will stay here and walk with her.”  With a mutttering of “Don you baby her too much” she walked up the dusty trail with her head held high as if she was too good for this nonsense.

He taught me to keep going even when it gets tough and that it was okay to go slow as long as you were moving forward.

The bar was set high for  a man in my life.

© Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.