Joyanna Adams

Nobody Reflects on Fathers

Nobody’s Opinion

When I woke up this morning, I was telling myself to write something for all the fathers who read me. After all, it was Father’s Day and at least two that I know of are really great dads. (amfortas and Doug Powers) But nothing was coming to me. Somehow, to say, “Happy Father’s Day” was just so…trite. Unworthy…not good enough: and then, with a call from my son, we found out that we had quite a ways to travel to meet at the restaurant we all wanted to go to.
So..off we went— no column.

During dinner, my brother showed up, with a young boy named Cody, who he has basically been a father to since he was born, being as his mother was a single parent. There is not a weekend or day goes by that my brother is not doing something with him. Cody had just got his permit, and my brother was teaching him how to drive, as he had once done with my son. My brother had lost his first and only son, Justin, ( the sweetest of angels) about a year after he was born, and it literally torn him up. He never wanted to go through it again, so it was decided, no more children.

During dinner, Gary (my brother) started talking about how he had taught my son, Brett, how to crawl. He would put the Pepsi can just out of his reach and say, “Come on…you can do it!” And Brett (my son) would rock back and forth, grunting as babies do… finally getting up and crawling to the can, where my brother would give him a sip, and start it all over again.

Nowadays, that might get you arrested as child abuse.

I couldn’t stop laughing as he was telling this story, because my brother Gary uses body language, and it became even more hysterical when he was talking about my son’s first Christmas, and made he made the same faces that my son made when he first came into the room, which was stocked full of toys. Imitating one-year-old Brett…Gary sort of went into facial convulsions, showing so much stunning emotions, that I’m sure the waiters were wondering if they should cut him off.  (By the way, he doesn’t drink.) Gary swears he has this on film.

“You’re mother went a little overboard.” he told my son, who was busy eating some kind of pasta.

Let me interject here, in case your wondering,— my first husband basically took off before my son was one. So my brother and my father became his “dads.”

Gary then went on to brag about Cody’s pitching. And I remember, how my dad had coached a little league baseball team, and his son (Gary) was the star pitcher. My father’s brother (Named after Dizzy Dean) had been on a minor league Cardinal team, so my dad knew a lot about the sport. And now, all these years later, my brother had been passing down, what our father had taught him about baseball.  And his pride in Cody, a star pitcher, was the pride of any father.

I was seeing my dad’s face on my brother’s, as I listened to him talk. I remember my father’s face so many times…just beaming with pride when my brother did something great…which was pretty much all of the time.
When my father smiled, he lit up the room like a volcano.

As we were leaving, my son said, “I’m going to go home and watch the U.S. Open. Go watch it mom, there is a young kid better than Tiger Woods.” Wanting to be “up” on my son’s interest, I did watch it, and was touched by this young Irish boy, Rory, Mcllroy, only 22, winning the U.S. Open, and grabbing his father, and saying, “Happy Father’s Day!” in front of the whole world. And I was thinking…you know, Tiger just wasn’t the same after his dad died.

And then it hit me.

My father was there today at our family get together, even though he has been gone for many years now. My dad, had gotten my son literally HOOKED on golf. He had him putting when he was still in diapers. His first word was “ball.” He died when my son was around seven, but before that Brett and his grandfather would play eighteen holes every weekend. He was actually better than Tiger Woods was at five. If my father had lived, it might have been my son winning the U.S. Open today. (Hey…I’m a mother, What do you expect?)

Funny, I didn’t even think about my dad until I got home, and part of him was actaully sitting right in front of me in the booth. Both his son, and his grandson, were products of the love and direction of a great father. He gave them both the ultimate gift: his time, his knowledge, and his love.

My brother now has “two” kids, he really didn’t ask for. He is always there to help my son, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me. I am so proud that my brother is such a decent and loving man, that he has taken a boy that’s not his, and made him his own. I wonder if Cody will appreciate how much my brother does for him, but something tells me…yup.

And the fatherly things he has done for my son, I can never repay.

Now, I’m going to send this to my brother, because I never told him, really, out of all the many talents he has (and he has MANY) being a father is, probably one of his best.
Yes Gary…you are a GREAT dad!

As for the rest of you guys…if you don’t have any kids…go find a kid and get going…what? How are we going to save the world without the fathers?

We won’t.

I hope you all had a great Father’s Day, because, remember…it’s the ONE day of the year, you can pick on mom.

Nobody Flashes:

(The picture is my father, worrying about his premature grandson. It was Brett’s first day home from the hospital, (he was there almost two months) There is something about a man’s stomach that sooths sick babies. Mother’s for all their fat, are just not hot enough. At least that’s my  Nobody Opinion.)

June 20, 2011 - Posted by Joyanna Adams | Life