I can't seem to think of a slick or cutesy way to say it, so I'll just blurt it out: My Dad is my Hero. I've recently realized that all the things I've ever accomplished, or want to accomplish, I can connect to something my dad said, either in passing or in direct fathering (if there's a difference). The things I count as my biggest failures are curiously those same things that I know would, or did, disappoint Dad the most. (However, I really cannot remember him expressing much disappointment in me, except when I hit his car with another car when I was twelve and again with my own car when I was 18.) One of the hardest and most gratifying experiences of my life was when I tried to fulfill my late secretary's request that I speak at her funeral. As I prepared, all I could think of was trying to picture how my minister-dad would do it. When the time came, guess who was sitting in the front row with my mom, both of them smiling words of encouragement and sharing tears of empathy. Dad has always been everybody's minister. When family member's die, he doesn't get to grieve because he's being leaned on by everyone else. He doesn't get to sit in the pew and cry because he's usually the one conducting the funeral; not because he's on some kind of ego trip, but just because he ministers as a way of life--not as an occupation. That was the case for my grandparents, my uncles, a twelve-year-old cousin who was killed recently on a motorcycle, many friends, and even my brother. There's a long-standing request in my will that if Dad survives me, I want him to do my funeral; I just don't trust anyone else as much. Dad is my hero, not because he's good with dead people, but because he constantly reminds the living among us that life is so much more than things and sadness. And he doesn't preach it, he walks it. We expect it of him because he never lets us down. We've put that huge burden on him and he wears it well, and I don't think we tell him enough. But that's my dad, that's my hero, and that's what I want to be when I grow up.
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