Porch Storms and Birthday Calls: A Lenten Reflection on a Rich Life and a Real Father

“Daddy," I whispered, feeling my own breath hitch in my throat. "I love you."

Just when I was sure he was asleep, the one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. "I knew that," he murmured. "Always knew that.” ― Morgan Matson, Second Chance Summer

First a little intro. This may seem like an odd time to be thinking of fathers.  Father’s Day is not until June 15th.  But what is happening now for some of us is a reflective time called Lent. People do various things to help themselves grow spiritually during this time.  Compassion is certainly a big part of that journey for me.  If there is anywhere I need to do some compassion work, it is with my relationship with my father though he’s been dead now for over a decade. 

So, I offer this (Lenten or preparation for Father’s Day) reflection to all those who have had or are having difficult relationships with people, especially a parent, or anyone close to them.

When I was a girl growing up in Tennessee, I wanted my father to be like Jim Anderson (Robert Young) from Father Knows Best—steady, wise, socially gracious. But my dad? He was more like a character Faulkner might’ve dreamed up after a few drinks: eccentric, unpredictable, lost in space, as well as tender in the strangest of ways.

He was the fifth of eight kids, a wiry fighter in every sense of the word. He liked to brawl in his early years, especially if he thought someone was wrong or unfair. His temper could ignite like dry brush, and sometimes none of us knew quite why. He had an affair when I was in high school, a jagged wound in our family story. He had no close friends, not really—he didn’t understand the give and take of relationships, the subtleties. He’d show up at a random church, uninvited, and ask to sing – then deliver an impassioned solo in his own unique style.

But he also had this deep, inexplicable awe for growing things. I remember him kneeling in the garden, gently brushing dirt away from tiny seedlings as if he were handling newborns. A miracle which he’d try to get me to understand. He’d sit on the front porch in the middle of our wildest Tennessee lightning storms, not flinching, just watching the heavens crack open like he was meeting God face to face.

And after his heart attack at 49—massive and sobering and which left his doctors not expecting him to live another year—it was as if some switch flipped. The fire was still in him but softened. He made delicious homemade meals from his garden for anyone who stopped by. He hovered in the kitchen, making biscuits just right. He began calling people—hundreds of them—on their birthdays. It became his personal mission: to remember people on their special day. That was his way of saying, “You matter. I see you.” 

At my dad's funeral, person after person came up to me and said, “I’m going to miss his birthday calls. No one else ever remembered.”

I spent a long time trying to square who he was. The hot anger, the impulsiveness, the infidelity—those things didn’t go away because he cooked delicious homemade meals or called people on their birthdays. But neither did the meals and birthday calls disappear because he’d hurt us and was an oddball. That’s the truth of people, I guess. We’re tangled vines, full of both thorns and sweetness.

I was judgey for a long time. I wanted the sitcom dad. But I got a dad who loved in his own odd, stubborn, enigmatic way. I’ve come to see that a good life—a truly good life—doesn’t come from having perfect parents or being one. It comes from learning how to hold the contradictions of people without bitterness.

Here’s what I know now at 75, older and maybe a little wiser (giving credit to you here, Dad):

You don’t have to make excuses for people to make peace with them. You don’t have to rewrite history to accept the complexity of love. And sometimes the best way someone can show love is to call you on your birthday, every year, without fail—just to say your life is important. Or make you a garden-fresh meal.

If your relationship with your father (or anyone) was (or is) complicated, I want to offer this gentle reminder: Forgiveness doesn’t mean pretending it was all okay. It means you no longer let the pain write the whole story. Love can be messy.

And continued healing comes to me sometimes from the smallest, strangest things. A song sung off-key in a church, a garden grown tomato, a lightning storm.

This Lent (or upcoming Father’s Day if you prefer), let’s allow ourselves to courageously and compassionately be with the real men behind their father roles, including the ones who were flawed, but still capable of awe. The ones who didn’t always know best—but sometimes, surprisingly, loved deeply in their own unique way.

Maybe a flourishing life isn’t a picture-perfect one like those depicted in television shows from the fifties with fathers who always knew best. Maybe the richest lives, and the most psychologically rich people, are simply the real human ones.

How might we take this Lent (or upcoming Father’s Day) to intentionally move up to the rich life by seeing, acknowledging, and appreciating people - including our fathers, in their fullness…their complexity and wholeness, their humanity? (You may experience a true "liberation day.")

P.S. My dad lived thirty years more after his massive heart-attack…outliving his doctors.