Nursing Entrance

My dad is a bona-fide and quintessential member of "The Greatest Generation". Seasoned by the Great Depression and tested by segregation, he emerged as a great man.

I thought you should know it. With only a fourth-grade education, he is humble and unassuming about his knowledge. Still, like many of our fathers, he taught my brothers and sisters and I some of the most profound lessons we ever learned.

By the time my Dad was Nine years old, he was working on a farm, driving a tractor that his feet could not even touch. Leaving school to work on the family farm, his real-life education began. My Dad has no imposing letters at the end of his name. Nevertheless he was a master mechanic, gas station runner and everything else her thought he could be. He told use stories about squirrel stew and different varieties of meats. He can grow exquisite flowers and healthy vegetables, could restart a frozen engine and could count cards (a skill he practiced at home and at Mr. Tom's shop on Jelliff). I grew up thinking all Dads knew this kind of stuff. But I learned that his is a rare wisdom whose elegant lessons have framed my life.

Among his many refined talents, Dad is or should I say was a smooth and expert driver. He contended that a good driver should be able to maneuver with two feet (I don't know how he does it... I tried). Throughout my high school years, one morning, while taking me to school, he uncharacteristically swerved to avoid a small paper bag in the roadway. Jarred from my morning stupor I complained, "Dad, it's only a bag!" His response still rings with me yet. "Just a bag, but you never know what's inside."

How hard it is to learn the art of not underestimating the "inside". So many people, so many situations turn out to be more or less than we expected. Not only in driving, but in life, My Dad had an immense capacity for prudent exploration and a good-natured respect for life as it came to him. He didn't take appearances for granted.

In his late fifties, Cancer incapacitated Dad. His activities become severely lessened, but then after 3 cycles of Chemotherapy and radiation. Despite what all the doctors said, he proclaimed, "I'm healed, God said so" and after that day he stopped all treatment. My dad has been cancer free for over 6 years since....

Now still today, my father stands a great man, husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather. I know that I've said this many other times before but, I love you daddy and Happy Fathers' Day to you.

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