A rare treasure

A rare treasure that what my father was to us as a family. It is easy to ask now that you are grown did you appreciate your father. The answer is no. We did not recognize and appreciate what we had then. It was when I was an adult and teaching Sunday school that I began to realize that I could not connect with many of my students experiences because where they had no father to speak about I had one that was with whom I was having an excellent relationship.
Even now I find that growing up with a father was a privilege that I enjoyed. Recently I sat in a session and listened to a lecture on how children should be taught to handle money. It is a good thing that my father is now dead for it would have driven him mad if he was taught to grow his children in such a way. My father regarded his children as his responsibility and they were his pride and joy so he took joy in making provision for us.
presently I still find I cannot connect when some persons describe the relationship that they had with their father or talk about not having a father. I try to explain that my situation was of such that the last cup of coffee that my father had before he died I was the one who made it. I rode in the ambulance that took him to the hospital from which he never returned.
Growing up I thought that other children had better fathers. As an adult I can look back on the many men that I have personally known and now I can compare and realize that not one match up to my father. I compare my brothers and myself to him and we too fall short. He was a rare treasure.
After my father died I thought how I could pay tribute to him and I wrote two poems in tribute to him I will share the first verse from each.

 A Tribute to my Father

Dead who?

How can that be true?

Children grandchildren, great-grand children and more

They all came from you

All inherited something from you

And will pass it on to their children too

 

   MY Father

I did realize how great a father I had

Neither did I know what made a father a real dad

Sacrificing opportunity for personal advancement

Just to be there for his wife and children

 

It was he who ensured we went to school

Bought our books and attended P.T.A.  Meetings

He ensured we read a lot and did our home work

Keeping us busy because he never believed in idle hands

 

He always affirmed our success

And gloated when we did well

Second best was never for him good enough

 And woe betide the one of us that failed

 

 

(both poems have been copyrighted and the full text appear in my book Ready to Rumble available in Amazon stores, kindle direct publishers and create space ebooks.