This morning while perusing the New York Times online, I read the "quotation of the day" which was by a guy named Colin Archipley, a Marine Corps infantry sergeant turned organic farmer: "In the military, grunts are the guys who get dirty, do the work and are generally underappreciated. I think farmers are the same."
My dad - a farmer for his entire life - has now been dead for a few years, but he remains larger than life in my mind and in my life. He got dirty, did the hard work and may have been underappreciated for his life's work as a farmer, but he was certainly not underappreciated as a person, husband or father.
He was a good person and a great man - patient, tolerant, sympathetic, understated, inspirational, funny and a friend to many. He was a calm presence when things weren't always calm. He suffered from so many health problems but never once complained or stopped going when it must have required some pretty amazing supernatural powers just to get out of bed. As his preacher said during his funeral service, he loved God, his family, and his farm in that order.
For a father who still motivates me, inspires me and whose presence I feel daily, I am most truly and profoundly grateful.
3 comments:
He most certainly was an amazing man!
To know your dad was to love him!
To know your dad was to love him!
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