The Blessing 2

I blogged this a while back and never published it.

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My father would have been 97 today had he not succumbed to the coronavirus last summer. I blogged about that last year. The last time I saw him was exactly three years ago and I blogged about that event as well. Reminiscing on that trip, it occurs to me that I received more of a full blessing from him than I'd originally understood.

I suppose I have to mention that before I left Ohio to move to CA, my relationship with my dad wasn't all that great. After graduating from college, I didn't find meaningful work in IT for over three years, and I spent a lot of time at home doing nothing. One day I was waiting in the car to go somewhere, and while playing with the seat belt, I managed to pull it all the way out and it wouldn't retract. My dad came out, saw me frantically trying to get the seat belt to retract and said: "You f--k up everything." I carried that pronouncement/prophecy with me to CA, where I engaged in a lot of self-sabotaging behavior. More on that in a future post. 

I'd already received what I'd call the first part of the blessing when he affirmed my ability to take care of myself when I began my sabbatical. I was talking with my mom on the phone, my dad got on the line, asked me if I had everything covered, and I told him yes. He said: "ok." and he never brought it up again.

Going on to my last visit, I'd already mentioned helping him with the yardwork when I first got home, but I think I should also mention what happened the night before I left. My dad always reviewed his change and saved certain coins. The night before I left, he gave some of these coins, including a huge container of pennies, thinking that the older pennies might be valuable. He thought it would take at least a half hour to identify those pennies and I told him I'd be done in about 10 minutes by using a more efficient search criterion; instead of looking at the year, all I had to do was check the backs of the pennies to eliminate all the newer pennies and remove them from the pile. I was done even sooner than I expected, and when I showed him, he gave one of those 'huh!' kind of laughs you make when you're pleasantly surprised. He gave another of those laughs when I showed him how I did it. Something changed in that moment; he'd never seen me exercise my mind before.