Questions for Dad

June 16, 2025

Greetings from the footsteps,

Earlier this week I was driving with one of my sons, and we were having one of those wandering conversations, just whatever came up.  But eventually he was asking about my dad, ordinary questions about his life, probably things I’d told him many times, but on this day he seemed to hear them.

It’s a unique delight as a parent to have your children reach an age where you can connect in this way. It seems that there is an eternity where they can’t understand you, and then the time when they can but your job is to tell them things, to instruct and protect and encourage.  And eventually, just when you are not paying attention, they are old enough to ask good questions, and also know their own answers.

There are a few things in life that I am now qualified to say I would do differently, as a parent, and as a son.  I don’t dwell on that short list, but Father’s Day made me think of my dad, who passed away over two decades ago.  Yesterday I realized that I had accumulated some questions that I regret I didn’t ask him.

Most of his life, my dad was an enigmatic presence.  He was a kind, gentle man, but he was also The Dad, and so I suppose growing up there was always that separateness that exists between parents and children. 

He worked, he mowed the lawn and washed the car, he picked up the wrapping paper on Christmas morning, he loaded the car to take us camping.  If the kids got out of line, he would (reluctantly) rein us in.  He enjoyed simple pleasures, quietly.  Cuppa tea, his favorite cookie, (which we were forbidden to eat) the occasional scotch, burning trash behind the garage.  He was with us, loved us, but he was still our dad, so there was an otherness to him.

He was a person of even temperament, so I remember the exceptions.  The time he was angry at our neighbor who had poisoned our dog.  Or when his family would visit from the auld country, and he would whoop and dance with them in the living room, the hifi blaring bagpipe music.

I lived near my dad as an adult, so I had plenty of opportunities to find out more about his life, but there are gaps that I waited too long for.  As I think about these questions this morning, they seem to be less about what he did, and more about what he felt.  What was it like to come to this country from Scotland at sixteen?  To walk off a boat and then be left to live with his cousins until he could fend for himself?  Was he afraid? What did he think would happen?  What did he hope for? Did he miss his family?

My dad carved a place for himself in a new country, somehow got his first job (What was your first day like at the Durant Hotel?) started a career, (How did you have the courage to go from washing cars at the dealership to becoming a salesman?)  raised a family, (How did it make you feel, bringing your first daughter home?)  And one day, with five children and a wife at home, a mortgage, plans for his life, he was out of a job. (What was that day like, coming home from locking the door on East Side Buick, with no idea what would happen?)  I can only imagine how all that hit him, because I never asked him.

I had plenty of good conversations with my dad when we were both adults.  There came a time when Parkinson’s robbed him of his speech and so all I could do is hope he understood me.  I think in those last years I realized I’d waited too long to ask him any of the things I might have wondered about, and now that he’s gone, I look at those questions, solidified like fossils in my mind.

I don’t know that thirty years ago I would have asked, but I wonder now: What was the biggest mistake you ever made?  What would you do differently? Tell me about your faith. How did your divorce hit you, what was it like with your friends and family after that? How does it feel, your body, your world changed by a disease that can be so devastating? What do you miss?  

Maybe those are not the things I would have had the courage to ask then.  Now I am nearly the age my father was when he passed, and it seems more like we are contemporaries, and I feel more comfortable asking the personal questions. The lesson for me this morning is that we are rarely afforded the perfect time for anything.

Most of what I know about my dad was from his examples of living, which I am grateful for.  We had meaningful talks, including some of those wandering conversations, just whatever came up.  And I have one letter from him from 1975 that said a lot, and I treasure that.  (Were you self-conscious about your handwriting?)

I follow in my father’s footsteps, and I am paying attention, hopefully learning from the pattern.  I write this out for myself, as a reminder, and for my children, who in their own way follow my footsteps, and their children, who follow us all.  If it matters, if you want to know, if you are curious, if you need to…then ask.

“Nothing shapes our journey through life so much as the questions we ask.”  Greg Levoy

Hope this finds you finding out,

David

Copyright © 2025 David Smith