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A Father's Love by Zach Hill |
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I believe in a father's love. I've come to believe in it more actually since I've been away from home. The distance does something. I wouldn't have guessed distance could strengthen a relationship. As I look back to the time running up to my high school graduation, I can see that I started to think about my family more. It began to click in my head that I was no longer a child, that I was about to leave Indiana for Texas in a few months. This meant I would probably never be around my family and my father as much for the rest of my life.
I can recall working on Saturdays when songs like Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle" would start to play. The last half of that song creates a lump in my throat. It reminded me of, well, me. I didn't want to be the son in that song, a son who has plenty of opportunities to spend time with his father but always has more pressing things to do. For instance, he goes to college, spends time with his friends, and then soon he has a family of his own. Time flies. I don't want to live my life loving my father but not spending time enough to get to know him. I love my dad. I want to be able to show it.
That song also brings to mind a quote by Frederick Buechner. He wrote, "The sadness was I lost a father I had never fully found. It's like a tune that ends before you've heard it out. Your whole life you search to catch the strain and seek the face you've lost in strangers' faces." This has also brought me closer to understanding my father's love. Over the past year and a half, I've vowed to draw nearer to my father to make sure that he's not a stranger to me. Our relationship is a song in which I would very much like to hear the end.
Now when I go home to Indiana, I spend the majority of the time with my family, and that means more time with my father. This past trip home, we worked together to saw and split over 180 feet of fallen trees to make firewood. We sweated and labored for a good four days at least. It was tiring work, but just being together over those few days brought us closer. Now, more than ever, I cherish moments like these with him. Memories like fishing, backpacking, the Indy 500, bedtime stories, and smoking cigars. The list could go on. I also realize just how much a nineteen year-old can take for granted. I've been a lucky kid to have a dad like him.
The love my father's given me has helped mold me into the person I am today. He's provided me a healthy environment in which to grow up while giving me an example of a real man, a strong man. He's a man who leads his family. I've probably inherited more of his traits and mannerisms than I probably ever wanted to inherit. He's shown me how to respect authority, to respect women, how to work hard, and, in doing that, he's taught me how to love. And by loving me, he's taught me how to love him.
Zach Hill is a biochemistry major from Carmel, Indiana.
