re: OT Dads, ever get that moment of realization where you start to understand your Old Man?

quote:

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Wait till you're a grandfather, and you see your son lose his patience with his boy, and you tell him to lighten up and give the kid a break.

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See, that’s the hard thing for me to reconcile. My dad is a good, hardworking man. Worked and slaved the ways he knew how to provide for us. We had food on the table, and I remember road trips across the country to see mountains and kin and stuff like that.

But kid memories are fuzzy, and when I got older I just remember him being hard on me. All the time. Nothing ever good enough. And all those good time kid memories we must have had got replaced with the teenage angst and rebellion.

My dad was blue collar, but work was what he did. Grease and diesel and dirt and work filled my childhood. And when I decided I wanted to do something more, with my head instead of my back, he didn’t seem to see it as what a working man was supposed to do. He’s got an a-hole streak to him. And we butted heads.

But around those grand babies is about the only time I see him happy. I know he had a hard life and his dad was hard on him so I guess that’s what he learned and wanted to make sure I had that ethic instilled in me.

And now, I hear myself telling younger guys things I learned like the importance of just getting up and showing up to work every day, even if you don’t feel like it. Being dependable. Doing a job the right way and not half assing it.

And some of it wasn’t stuff he told me, in words, but what I picked up from him, working in the grease and the mud and the rain. I guess it rubbed off. Some good, some not so good.

He worked so hard and all the time, so he missed a lot of things. And earlier in my adult life I had a good paying gig, but it took me away from my family all the time.

And after my 6 month stretch of tragedy, I learned that all the money in the world won’t buy a minute of time back. And they don’t stay little long. I still work a lot, but I left the shift life. Sometimes lullabies are more important than overtime, and you’ll remember long hugs from little ones more than all the dollars you could have made in the long run.

And for that I’m thankful