Truly Blessed
This Saturday will be nine years since our Dad passed away. I lost him three months before I lost Cathy. Lost is only a temporary word.
One of the memories of Dad that will not let me go is a time he had taken my brothers and I hunting. A rabbit ran into a hole in the bottom of a tree. Dad leaned his shot gun against the tree and picked up a stick and began to poke around the hole trying to flush the rabbit out.
Well, it worked. In the excitement of the rabbit fleeing for his life, Dad knocked the gun over and the barrel hit him square on the top of his head. It cut a gash and working on getting the bleeding to stop brought an end to the hunt.
My memory is not so much about the rabbit nor the gun. It was my Dad. I don’t know how old I was, but it was old enough to have been around some other men and see how they reacted when they injured themselves like Dad had done. I don’t know why the thought occurred to me. I had never, nor did I ever, hear my Dad utter any kind of profanity. But for some reason the fact that my Dad did not utter any kind of profanity on this day would become one of my key memories of him.
My Dad taught me a very important lesson and he never knew he did it. It wasn’t a lesson he was trying to teach, he was just being himself.
I am a truly blessed man. I had great parents. Great brothers. Two wonderful wives. A wonderful family of sons, daughters-in-law, grandchildren and in-laws.
At the heart of that family of mine is God.
God has given me a great family and a circle of friends who are His family that live all over this world. They remind me every day of what it means to live for Him, how to do it and why it is so important.
Thank you, my wonderful family, for being a part of my truly great blessing.
Thank you, Father.