NoJoMo Day 11 in The Long and Winding Road

Day Eleven: What are some traits and looks that you inherited from your dad?

I have to think about this one. I never knew my biological father. My mother was not married when I was born, but she kept me and loved me - which took a lot of courage back in 1952. My dad – the man I know as Dad - met her and married her before I was 2 years old and he adopted me. He always said he’s not sure who he fell in love with first – her, or me. So I was very loved and very fortunate. I didn’t always feel that way, but I know that I was. So it’s nature vs. nurture and in this case any traits I inherited from him were due to nurture, and I certainly didn’t get any of my looks from him, even though when I was little, people would always comment on how much I looked like him!

The thing is, I’m honestly not sure what traits I may have inherited, or picked up, from him. He could be very critical and opinionated, and I can be too. So was I going to be that way anyway, or was it his influence?

He instilled in me a good work ethic. He was a strong believer in giving your employer 100% – if you were being paid to do a job you do it to the best of your ability. If you don’t like your job or you don’t think you’re being paid enough, that’s on you. Go find another job. But in the meantime, you’re being paid, you do the work.

He was a stern, strict father. If we said we didn’t feel well enough to go to school, then we didn’t feel well enough to play or watch TV. Back in the day, kids got spanked. Sometimes he made us choose between “the hand, or the belt”. The hand hurt because you could feel the sting of his wedding band. But the belt hurt worse.

He tore down my self confidence as I was growing up, and I’m still working on healing some of those wounds; but he didn’t realize he was doing it. He thought he was building it up. But his methods were all wrong.

Aaaaah...... there’s no use going down this road. I love my dad, he did the best he could, and I’ve made peace – or am working on making peace – with the sins of the father. He’s 85 years old now, fading away from Alzheimer’s, and I wish with all my heart I could have somehow spared him this long goodbye.