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A celebration of silent strength
(by Jennifer Botkin Phillips - June 11, 2008)
Though it boggles my mind that it’s June already, this month has started out exactly the way Hallmark advertising depicts it will. Many of us will be celebrating a graduation, an anniversary of sorts, or wedding, a birthday, a bat-mitzvah or bar mitzvah, and of course, Father’s Day is fast approaching.
My niece, Ashley, graduated from high school and my nephew, Ryan, celebrated getting his GED. Since my family lives on the West Coast, I wasn’t able to be there. Therefore, I’ve enjoyed most of these events vicariously and almost blow-by-blow through phone calls, text messaging, and digital camera uploads on the computer.
The anniversary of sorts, I mentioned, is because a woman never forgets her wedding day. In spite of divorce, or other unforeseen circumstances, that is a day in a woman’s life that is imprinted in her mind for all time. This year, mixed up in the middle of the week of graduation celebrations, marks 42 years that I would have been married had my life turned out differently. That sounds like such a long time though, as I’m sure no one would believe I was that old. Don’t they say that today being sixty-ish is more like being forty-ish?
But there is no time to linger on the past and what might have been. Another day dawns and another celebration looms.
I marvel at the adaptability of my 94-year-old stepfather, “Pop.” I think of the example he has both set and consistently lived during the 34 years he was married to my mother before her elevation to Heaven, last summer. As the patriarch of our family, I stand amazed at the hurdles he’s crossed over the span of his life. He comes from a generation of strong stock with a seemingly unspoken silent code of no matter what happens you just keep going.
Over the course of my life with “Pop” I wasn’t the only one interested in his stories. When my children were young they would gather around with their cousins and together we’d all listen as he shared his adventures of a young boy growing up in
Missouri and then riding the rails out west. He and his friends were regular Tom Sawyer, Huck Finns of the 1930s.
The one story we all loved was hearing about his days of riding the rails and how he and his friends hoped on train cars whipping down the tracks. We were awed by his life in the fast lane and the daring and dangerous habits of his gang of ruffians. They weren’t bad; just young, naïve, and adventurous… and they wanted to get out of
Missouri .
They spent a spell in Wyoming working in Yellowstone, and though he liked it there, they were now hearing about work out in
Santa Paula, California . So, off they went again.
“Pop” settled in Visalia, right smack in the center of California in the
San Joaquin
Valley , known for growing fruits and vegetables. A farmer, he built a ranch on property he bought and lived there for 50 years working his ranch while also raising a family, and working full time for the Edison Company. As a widower, he met and married my mother, a widow. They worked along side each other at the ranch irrigating doing other chores and still managed to travel the world and even went through the
Panama Canal on one trip.
In his 80s, prompted by the eternal inquiries about his life from the family, “Pop” wrote his life story on the computer making it into a binder book (with photos) for the family. In his early ’90s he had knee surgery, first on one knee and then later on the other knee. Though “Pop” isn’t jumping trains anymore and walks with a cane now, he continues to set an example of how to make it through the tough times in life.
We all want “Pop” to live to be 100 so that we can contact Willard Scott on NBC and have his picture pasted on the Smucker’s Jelly Jar. Regardless of what the days ahead bring, this Father’s Day my thoughts focus on my dad and his strength, determination to keep going, and his inspiring smile.
Like the grains of the sand that silently slip through the hourglass, “Pop” has taught me there is no time to linger on the past, but to keep celebrating today, and the future.
Until next time… Top Blonde… on the run.
| Comments (2) |
On June 15, 2008 Cheryl said:
As usual, a brilliant take on life and life's special moments. As usual, also, the article directs my mind to reflections of similar experiences and loved ones. Thanks |
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On June 12, 2008 Merriliz said:
ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS@!!! BRAVO BRAVO! LOVED IT< GREAT JOB!! |
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