What my father taught me

A lesson in love and acceptance

I learned from my father that no-one is better than me and no-one is worse. He was a man who met everyone with warmth and openness.

My father taught us many things. There were five of us and I am the eldest and the only girl. Dad worked long hours. In a time when it was still unusual for women to work outside the home, my mother had the traditional role and Dad took his responsibility as breadwinner seriously, working extra jobs to support our large family.

Dad was a firefighter, working shift work. On top of that he picked up other work, mostly driving delivery trucks and I know that for most of my waking life, he was not there. Yet, looking back across the years, my childhood memories are filled with times he spent with us. I guess it’s quality, not quantity, that counts.

He took us to the park, to the beach, and the zoo. More than anything, he taught us: fair play, tolerance, and acceptance.

We learned to play cards at the kitchen table with Dad. We played euchre, poker, rummy and we played seriously. If we tried to pick up our hand before the deal was finished, he would stop us abruptly. “I’ve seen men shot for that,” he would bark, with a twinkle in his eye. He grew up in a rough part of the city and that may have been the truth. Anyway, it taught us good manners.

Dad taught us to play cricket. We played with a tennis ball in the back yard, or later, when we moved to a cul-de-sac, in the street with the neighbours’ kids. The stumps were a garbage bin: one of the old, silver, metal ones. The rules were the rules. When you were out, you were out, no matter how young, although we always bowled underarm to the little ones. Kindness and fairness go hand in hand.

Dad was smart but left school at around fifteen to take up an apprenticeship as a carpenter. He needed to earn to help support the family. A few years later, he was able to transfer to the fire brigade, another branch of the state government for which he already worked. He eventually became a station officer, a promotion that rewarded him for additional study and exams.

At home, he used to set us maths equations. We raced our way through long division and multiplication, addition, and subtraction. In a time before pocket calculators, he taught us to prove our answers by the Rule of nine. This we regarded as fun, striving to get them right and win Dad’s praise.

He had studied comparative religion. This was out of interest, rather than requirement. He had a very open approach to faith, although he became a Catholic when he married my devout mother. I remember him correcting my mother when she told us how the Reformation began with Henry VIII. He just added quietly, “That is not how the Reformation began.” He did not get into a debate with Mum, because that was a waste of time and energy.

Dad loved to read and always took books to work for any opportunity that arose during his long shifts on duty.

Mum was a quiet soul, who did not really enjoy the company of others. Dad, however, was open and gregarious. He knew everyone, it seemed. When I was ten, we moved to a small, country town, where I still live. Here, Dad was in his element. He was involved in sporting clubs, community organisations, social clubs…. almost anything. For some years, he was a volunteer with a rugby league team that included trusted inmates from the local jail, some of whom became lasting friends. Anyone can make a mistake.

Dad was generous and quietly helped people in need, often without mentioning it to Mum, who had a different outlook. For years, he paid for the keep of a relative who had fallen on hard times, but he never spoke of these things.

In later years, he was a union official, who would fly to the city to attend high-powered meetings. He was on first-name terms with the Chief Officer of the state fire brigade. They had started in the job together as teens. Yet, he was equally comfortable chatting to a homeless person or anyone down on their luck.

When he died, the little church was packed with mourners, some of whom I had never met, but whose lives he touched. In the weeks and months that followed, acquaintances and complete strangers would approach me in the street to offer condolences. He was truly well-loved.

Dad wanted me to have an education. He was disappointed when I left school early and had wanted me to go to university, but my mother had already made it clear to me that that would not happen. When I decided to enrol in university as an adult, he paid my enrolment fee to make sure that, as a struggling single parent, I would not miss out. My education was interrupted by some personal issues, but I am now nearing completion of my degree, for my father’s sake. I hope he is watching.

More than maths and sports and games, my father taught me to love generously and meet people where they are, without judgment. No lesson could have been more important.

While writing this article, I came across the following article on a similar subject by Nancy Blackman, which touched me deeply. I think you will enjoy it too: