Father's Day

It always amazes me how some memories are as clear as if they had just happened, yesterday. Do you have those times that you remember, when you can feel the feelings again, almost smell the smells and see the events unfold in front of you? I remember one particular Saturday afternoon. I suppose I was seven or eight years old. My mom and I had spent the day in the kitchen, and it was my first attempt at baking a pie from scratch. I had mixed the flour and shortening, rolled it carefully, and patted it into the dish. Mom and I washed and prepared the black raspberries for the filling and wove the perfect lattice top. Mom even showed me how to pinch the edges, so that they looked fancy and store-bought. When my dad came through the back door, I was delighted to tell him that I had baked him a pie, almost all by myself! I can remember, so clearly, him smiling at me in approval and saying, “All-right!” as he walked through the kitchen and upstairs to take a shower before dinner.

I was delighted and proud. Until I attempted to take the fresh-baked pie out of the oven.  *SPLAT!* …upside down on the oven door. Ruined. Suddenly, I wasn’t the proud little girl, cooking something for her daddy that she knew he would love. Now, I was just the clumsy little girl, who always ruined everything.

My dad, probably hearing the commotion in the kitchen, walked-in from the living room. He must have noticed I had tears welling in my eyes, but if he did, I didn’t know it. Without missing a beat, he grabbed forks out of the drawer, exclaiming, “This is great! This is the best way to keep pie warm after it’s done baking!” He grabbed the ice cream out of the freezer, and I watched in disbelief as he scooped it out onto the pie, all of it running all over the oven door. I looked at mom, eyes wide, but she wasn’t upset about the mess, either. Instead, she was calling my brother to come eat dessert, though we hadn’t even had dinner, yet. I was dumbfounded.

We all sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor, the oven door as our table, and ate warm pie a la mode until we were full. I suppose it was a major effort to clean the oven after the fact, but I don’t remember that part. What I remember is my dad, seemingly thrilled to eat pie and ice cream off of the oven door, as if it was what he had always wanted to do; my mom, looking at my dad with pure love just before she called my brother to the kitchen; and my brother and I, feeling like we were getting away with something, eating sweets without having first finished our vegetables. What a night!

People ask me, often, “How do you stay so positive?” That question has been the catalyst for this blog, my book, and the whole of the “Living in Joy,” project I’ve started, in an attempt to investigate and articulate some kind of answer. Most of the time, I attribute my joyful disposition to my decision, consciously made, to cling (if sometimes only by my fingernails) to optimism. On this day, Father’s Day, however, I would like to also celebrate the fact that my ability to find the best part of any situation was taught to me. My father had the miraculous and gracious ability to instantly see the opportunity in situations that others would consider difficult, if not disasterous.

Yes, I have to make my own conscious decision to look for the good, but once I make that decision, I have the tools and skills to find it. And I learned them from my father.

Thank you, Dad. I miss you.