Leader FOCUS June 19, 2000

There was a time when Americans wore roses on Father’s Day. In 1924, when President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the third Sunday in June “Father’s Day,” he gave the Presidential order to wear a symbolic rose. Color sent a signal. A red rose indicated that Dad is living. A white rose meant Dad is not.

Mine would be white.

It was early in the morning. A Saturday. The phone rarely rings at six fifteen. On the other end of the line my brother’s tone sent the message. “This is the call none of us wanted… but we all expected,” he said, in a somber voice.

“Is he gone?”

“Yep,” my brother answered. (My dad always said “Yep.” Not “Yes.” Or “Yeah.” He said “Yep.” A quick, sharp staccato. Yep. Now we sons do the same. There was a distinct economy in his use of language.) So it was confirmed. The direct, matter-of-fact, straight answer was his way, too.

“Where’s Mom?” I asked.

“At the hospital.”

“See you there.”

So we gathered in the room where Dad died that morning. The whole tribe. We grieved. We laughed. We hugged. We reminisced. That was three years ago. He’s still with me.

* * * * * * * * *

Dads leave their mark.

When I get together with my pals, guys who are my peers, guys pretty close to the same life-stage, we talk about our dads. Their quirks. The crazy stories. The father-son stuff.

Earlier, when we were getting our start, we were all pretty much committed to becoming something other than what dad was. Maybe it’s because there was so much pressure to do it better. To shed the old politically incorrect attitudes and exchange them for the enlightened perspectives of our learned professors and in those sophisticated social circles. Maybe it was the pressure to provide more stuff than they did. More toys. Bigger houses. More trips. More trophies. More room in the family car. Give our kids all the stuff we didn’t have. For some of us guys, maybe it was to provide less stuff and be more available. Maybe it was the pressure to get in touch with our feminine side. To be more sensitive. More attentive to the children’s needs. More expressive about our feelings. More helpful with domestic chores.

We set out to be different. To show him how it’s done.

But all that seems a little silly now.

As we pass the age they were when we graduated from high school, as we look in the mirror and realize we are older than our dads were when we got married, there’s a new awareness emerging. We are more like him than we ever cared imagine.

For some of us, that’s OK.

* * * * * * * *

One of those friends of mine has a dad who is a genuine, authentic cowboy. A real, live Marlboro man (who long ago gave up his unfiltered cigarettes).

I’ve been on the range with Steve’s dad. I’ve watched him work a horse. Doctor a cow. I’ve seen him leaning against the hood of a pick-up truck chewing on a stalk of wheat and shootin’ the breeze with the local sheriff. I’ve seen the backcountry of the ranch. The high country. And I’ve watched the sun set over his world. A sky on fire. And the cool crystal clear nights, coyotes howling in the distance, and Bob, blurry eyed after a long day, turning in for the night.

Steve talks about the hunting trips. The overnights under the stars by a crackling campfire. Together they mended fences, and built roads, and dammed up creek beds to make water reservoirs. They chased cattle on horseback, and on dirt bikes. They birthed calves. They flew airplanes over the mountain peaks and into the canyons and then set ‘em down on unpaved runways and in the mornings, they put away a lot of bad coffee.

Steve lived in New York City for a while. He went after academic degrees. Read a bunch of heady books. Made a professional mark in the suburban sprawl of Southern California. He married a bright, attractive woman. If you saw him now, you’d never guess. But today, approaching age fifty, he’s got cows and chickens in his back yard.

And this weekend, he and his boy Trev are in the California mountains on a father son camping trip. Hangin’ out, together. Lookin’ at the same stars that twinkled in the big sky of Chalma, New Mexico, when it was Steve and his dad lookin’ up, and talkin’ long.

Now it’s Steve and Trev, makin’ memories.

* * * * * * * * * *

Our pastor’s name is Bill. His dad, Bill, attends our church.

Meet Bill Sr. for the first time after the service and there’s no doubt, his son, Bill, is the guy who preached the sermon.

The genetic imprint is unmistakable. But more than that, it’s the demeanor. The gestures. The tilt of the head. The easy laugh. The hairline. They both have full, thick gray hair. Short cropped.

Bill Sr. is approaching retirement. He’s a no-nonsense get-it-done kind of guy. He’s a people guy. His eyes light up when he talks about his kids. Professionally, he’s a negotiator. He’s a world-traveler. Committed to quality. A devoted family man. Inseparable from his good-lookin’ wife, Barb.

Pastor Bill (Jr.) is a no-nonsense get-it-done kind of guy. He’s a people guy. His eyes light up when he talks about his kids. Professionally, he’s a negotiator. He’s a world-traveler. Committed to quality. A devoted family man. Inseparable from his good-lookin’ wife, Sharon.

Just like his dad.

* * * * * * * * * *

Mark’s dad was a Mr. Holland. His life was an Opus in the works.

Mark’s rose is white, like mine. We buried our dads the same month, a week apart, three years ago.

Like many of our dads, Mark’s was a WWII veteran. He loved music. He went to college on the GI Bill, and married a blond Norwegian girl – who turned his head then captured his heart. He became an educator.

Mark’s dad was one of those high school teachers who connected with his students. He not only introduced them to the big Broadway musicals, and the classics, and the improvisation of jazz, and the ballads of folk, and the compelling patriotism of the brass band… he taught them to sing and play and then perform. Mr. Anderson (Mr. A. they called him) gave them the gift of music.

So when we all gathered to remember him the week he died, those students went to the front of the church and sang their hearts out. And in the middle of the crowd of singers was my friend Mark, chip off the old block, belting out a harmony.

Today Mark, like his dad, runs around our town like the pied piper. His enthusiasm for people is magnetic… whether it’s the booster club or the community parade or the water-polo game or the worship team on Sunday morning or the auction at the county fair, you’ll find Mark right in the middle of it, cheering everybody on to victory.

Just like his dad.

* * * * * * * * * *

Like Bill, John is a preacher.

One Sunday morning, a couple years back, he was preaching a father’s day sermon in his church in Southern Michigan. His subject was the Fatherhood of God… and as he confessed his boyhood struggle to his congregation, he tapped into some deep emotion. It blindsided him… in public.

John’s dad walked out when John was barely past kindergarten. Never saw him again.

(I knew John when we were both college age. We went to school together, traveled around the country a bit, and generally speaking, we were inseparable pals. I remember lots of stories from those days, but I told John recently that I did not recall that his dad left his mom… and him. “I didn’t talk about it much then,” John said.)

His sermon notes were clear that Sunday morning on Father’s Day. “When you have God as your heavenly Father, you don’t really need an earthly Father. He can fill the void.” But when he preached it, he could barely get the words out. He was a forty-year-old man, still hurting over the childhood abandonment that marked him for life.

He reached under the pulpit for the glass of water the head usher routinely put there every Sunday. John took a slow drink, and then a long deep breath. And then he confessed into the microphone, “I guess I’m not over it yet.” His people were with him.

“I haven’t seen him since,” he added as almost a throw away line.

Afterwards, as he greeted his congregation, a businessman cornered him. “Pastor John, do you have any idea where your dad is?”

“Somewhere in Florida,” John answered.

“Could you find out where, exactly?”

“I think so.”

“Would you like to see him?” the man asked.

“Well, uh, yeah.” John said sheepishly. “After what you saw up there, I guess you would say I need to see him.”

“How about today.”

“Today?” John’s eyes widened.

That very afternoon, not even an hour later, Pastor John boarded a business Learjet on the tarmac of the Grand Rapids Airport. As they climbed to twenty-five thousand feet and headed south towards Jacksonville, Florida, John reached over and took Julie’s hand. His wife had been with him a long time. She bore him four beautiful daughters. They took after her. But she had never seen him like this. He turned and looked out the porthole window, gazing at the sunlit horizon, and the clouds. And wondered what in the world was going on.

What will he be like? What will he say?

Julie stayed at the airport with the businessman and his pilot. Alone, John drove a rented car to the house of the man who left, more than thirty years before. He knocked on the door.

When his dad appeared, John’s mental picture was shattered. This was not the virile, bright eyed, sprightly man he’d imagined all those years. His face was puffy. Eyes yellowed. A sloppy potbelly hung over his belt. There was a Sunday afternoon three-day beard on his chin, scruffy and gray. The house unkempt. A bachelor pad. The over-stuffed chair on the porch was tattered and frayed. The rocker next to it must have been there for a decade or more, John thought.

“Ya want a beer?” John’s dad asked.

John knew that his dad did not understand his career choice. He knew instinctively that his profession (ministry) and his home (a cape cod charmer just outside Grand Rapids) and his family (four girls) all put John on a different planet than his bio-dad.

John doesn’t drink much beer. But he decided this time he’d go for it. It may relax the situation a bit, and make for better conversation, he figured.

“Sure, I’ll have one.” John’s dad disappeared into the house, and returned with two cold aluminum cans of Bud. John pulled back on the tab and popped the top. He raised the silver and red can, looking straight at his dad and smiled. Dad returned the gesture. They tossed back a swig of brew.

But there wasn’t much to talk about. And as John listened, and nodded, and probed… he realized it. This man impregnated my mother, abused her and me for a couple of years, and then left. Never again did he appear in our lives.

He never helped me with my homework. Didn’t teach me to ride a two-wheeler. Or throw a ball. He wasn’t in the bleachers at the game. Or the graduation. He doesn’t know my wife. Or my daughters. He’s never been there at Christmastime. He’s never heard me preach.

This man may have played a role in my personal genesis… but he is not my Father.

And when he said good-bye, surprisingly, he felt no emotion. It felt like one more pastoral call on a sad and lonely old man who had chosen isolation over community. One more pathetic man who bailed out on the responsibility of family. One more guy who would rather live alone in a shabby room than give himself to the generations. One more guy who would never know the loving affection of appreciative children. Or grandchildren.

Pastor John turned in the car and went back to the airport coffee shop. Julie looked up from her coffee and into John’s eyes. She asked, “Are you alright?”

John looked back into hers, and saw something he hadn’t seen before. He thought, “I’m never gunna leave, Julie. Never.” He smiled one of those smiles that said, “this one’s behind us.” He hugged her. And then to the businessman, he said, “Thank you, good friend.”

Then John said, “let’s go home.”

And they did.

* * * * * * * *

Fatherhood is no place for the faint hearted.

If you are one, stay the course.

As a leader, you know the power of effective fatherhood. You know the lasting impact. The stability it brings. The direction. The motivation. The pride.

As a leader, you also know the downside. The absence of “father” is certainly survivable, but it creates an aching void. Ask John… not even a Learjet can fill it.

Steve and Mark and Bill may try to convince you that they are fundamentally different men than that man they call their father… but take it from me. Don’t believe it. All three bear the indelible imprint of good dads.

If your rose is red, I trust that yesterday you took the time to let him know. In some meaningful way, you expressed your appreciation to the father who cared then and still cares today.

If your rose is white, I trust you took time to cherish the memories, and maybe remind Mom of how much you miss him.

If you didn’t, on this Monday morning, it’s not too late.

Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram