My Father’s Legacy

There are many ways to remember a person’s life. One way is to review their history, the empirical data of dates, events, and milestones. Things like when were they born, where they were educated, employed, and who they married highlight the details of their life.

That only tells part of the story and misses the really important parts. What I want to share concerns the heart, spirit, and mind of the man who shaped my life. My brothers have their own stories I am sure, but what I want to relate is something that happened when I was a teenager and my father asked me to help him with a special project.

I was a very skinny lad of about 14 when one of those early summer thunderstorms rolled through the area, accompanied by heavy rain, high winds, and tornado warnings. Our family headed for the basement, emerging after the storm to a very messy neighborhood. Tree branches littered the ground and roofing shingles had been loosened and torn from many of the homes. The greatest damage was at a neighbor’s house, two doors down from us, where a very large TV antenna had toppled over. These were the days before cable, so the larger the antenna, the better the reception. It now hung precariously and dangerously to the roof by one remaining, very stubborn, anchor bolt.

The lady of the house was an older woman who lived alone. I don’t know the details of what transpired between the neighbor lady and my father, or if he even talked to her at all, before deciding to fix that antenna. All I know is that the next weekend I was on her roof looking at the fallen antenna with my dad and then we were off to the hardware store for supplies.

It always amazed me that my father knew what every tool, gadget, or device in that store was designed to do. Sometimes I think he made up projects to do around the house because it required some tool he didn’t own.

In the case of the antenna, he bought some thick gauge galvanized wire, turnbuckles for tightening the wire, anchors for the roof, and sealant. Did he charge the neighbor for the supplies? No, he didn’t. It was an act of charity. Lesson one.

So, we had our supplies, and we were back on the job site. Working as a team, we drilled holes and inserted anchors into the roof and then sealed them against the weather. We measured and cut the guide wires, attaching them to the antenna and to the turnbuckles before lifting the antenna back into place. I felt I had taken a big step into a new stage of manhood. In the past, helping my father meant retrieving whatever tool, nut, bolt, washer, etc., that he needed. I was a fetcher, a human tool belt, guardian of the socket wrenches and generally only an observer. Now, I was helping him with the heavy lifting, standing on a roof thirty-feet above the ground. I don’t remember where my mother was in all this. Probably she was praying that we didn’t fall off the roof. A stiff wind would have knocked me over, but I stood firm because my dad needed me.

When we were done, we sat on the roof awhile and admired our work. He didn’t say much, but his actions that day spoke volumes. There was a job that needed doing and a neighbor that needed help. My dad stepped up and took care of it. Nobody asked him to help. His charity was proactive. Lesson two.

Many windy and stormy days swept through my life after that day, and many times I could have toppled over like that antenna. What held me in place through the storms were the anchors my father had put down for me in my youth. The guidelines he provided with his love and compassion sustain me still. If you ask me what the legacy of my father is, I will tell you this: he was a strong link in the chain of our lives and my brothers and I are the kind of men we are because of the kind of man he was. Now he is gone, but his life example and the lessons he taught still live on. In turn, I will pass those lessons on to my children and they will pass them on to theirs. The legacy will continue from generation to generation producing strong men and women.

A few years after we put that antenna back up, cable TV came to the area and the antennas slowly disappeared from the rooftops. In my mind, one of them will never come down because of a loving father that solidly anchored it in my memory.

Photo Credit

Old Antenna – Wikimedia Creative Commons 

Guest Author Bio

Kent Flowers
I am an electrical engineer living temporarily in Mexico. I spend some of my free time reflecting on and writing about my life here.

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