| When
we sat in the living room with Dad when we were kids, there was a large
picture window that was the Whitney window to the world. We lived
in a small town in Iowa, and many people coming from their farms drove
by our house as they came into town. We knew most vehicles and
every person (or at least my dad did) as they drove by. Our
family was connected to one of the two banks in town - Dad through
inheritance, and Mom had worked there in her early years and worked
there later as a substitute. As people passed our window, Dad had social commentary. There were comments like, “There’s Jonnie Johnson. He should be home getting his hay in.” My dad thought he knew what was right for people because he knew their finances. Well, maybe Dad just plain thought he knew how everyone else should run their lives. Is it any wonder I experienced Dad as judgmental? And there was anger there too. We didn’t have rules for behavior. When we did something he did not like, his response would be a look to kill and he would say “I thought you would know better than that!” Mom and Dad thought that was the right way to parent. In my heart, Dad remained the guy who thought he had the only key to the correct moral code. It was a surprise to me, then, as my dad approached the end of his life with a stay in the nursing home right in that small town, to hear comments about what a kind and pleasant person he was. I discounted it the first few times, but I heard it over and over again. I seemed to be the only one who had a different view. One day earlier in that last year, I drove down from Minnesota to visit my parents. Dad had become president of the bank after he retired from his state job and Mom was very concerned that he was using his and Mom’s money to make personal high-risk loans. She was quite worried. I told my brothers, but they were sure that was just Mom’s Alzheimer’s fog. After Dad’s death, I went through his papers. I stumbled upon a newspaper article he had made several photocopies of. As this was no small feat in that day and location, I knew this must be important. I took a closer look. It was copies of a “Dear Abby” article containing a poem warning that in one’s waning years, the way not to have friends around was to answer the how-are-you question with stories of your aches and pains, etc. What a surprise to me! Dad had actually been that kind and pleasant man later in life because he decided to do that! The man people hated to see die was actually the man my dad had become when I wasn’t paying attention. And those personal high-risk loans? The notes were there, of loans my dad made to young farmers and business people whose requests were probably denied by the bank. Those were the young fellows who came to this old man’s funeral praising him. They had seen the grace I had not seen. |
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