15 Years Later

How do you navigate your way through the world?

It helps to have a compass to keep you moving in the right direction.  It’s nice to have someone watching your back, so even if you do get lost, you’re protected from harm.  It’s not a bad idea to have a guide, not just to lead the way but to show you how to survive, succeed, and appreciate the world around you along the path.

I’ve been lucky to have all of those things as I’ve traversed my way through this life thing.  I tend to group them all together and give the whole entity a singular title.

Dad.

I’m not sure if my parents are even aware of this, but I have nicknames for them.  Whenever I mention them on social media, I affectionately refer to my dad and my mom as the Legend and the Champion, respectively. 

Frankly, they could both live up to either of those nicknames.  But as my appreciation for them has grown with time and age, those are the titles that just fit for them in my head.

For his birthday a couple of years ago, I planned to drive the Legend around his old stomping grounds to check out places he grew up.  And during the drive, I would interview him.  I know my dad pretty well, but I didn’t know a ton about him from before I showed up.  I just wanted to show interest and ask him about his life.

I mentioned the plan to the Champion a couple of weeks beforehand to get her input, and to get some thoughts for where I could take him.  She thought it was a great idea.

A few days before my dad’s birthday, I texted my mom for a few last-minute ideas for additional locations.  She told me that my dad had a list.  I wasn’t expecting this.

“Oh,” I typed. “That was actually supposed to be a surprise.”

“Oh,” she replied, “Well, I didn’t know it was supposed to be a surprise, so I told him everything.” 

In the end, whether it was intentional or not, my mom’s way worked out the best.  Of course it did. 

Once we were on the road, my dad simply directed me where to drive, and I drove there.  He knew where to go.  He always knows where to go.

We stopped by my grandmother’s childhood home.  My grandma, who was born during World War I.  The original Legend, who put family above all.  She grew up in this house, on this farm.  And I never knew about it until this day.

My dad even had me drive by another farm where my great grandfather grew up.  At this point it’s just a solitary barn and a silo, neither of which were probably there when my great grandpa was.  But it was still a pretty surreal feeling.

We drove through back roads as he told me stories about this guy that owned that farm there, or these woods over here, or how he met one of his closest friends to this day in the small little town up ahead.

And I did interview him.  It wasn’t really a formal interview, but I asked him about his life, just like I had planned.

But that, my friends, is where we’re going to do something a little different for this one.  This time, I am NOT going to tell you the rest of the story. 

We went to some pretty cool places, and I don’t mind generally mentioning some of those.  But our actual conversation?  That stays between us.  It’s just a special thing.  Nobody will ever get to hear or know the rest of it.  Not even Larsen.  It was just me and my dad, and I’ll take that conversation to my grave with a warm heart and a smile.

I’ve always appreciated my parents for how their friends view them.  My friends too, in fact.  It’s as if everyone who gets to know them finds them to be the coolest people in the world.  I didn’t quite get it in my youth, but I appreciated it.

The year before our drive, my siblings closed down a bar in town for the night (I guess I kind of helped too).  They invited over fifty people.  Every person except for two made it a point to show up, and the two that couldn’t expressed their wishes that they could.  All for my dad.  It was as if all of these people got the invite and said, “There’s no way I’m missing this!”

Why?  Because he has always, always been kind and respectful to the people that come into his life, for long or short periods of time.  He is the golden example of how to treat people.  The perfect role model, the ideal guide.

Growing up, I’d always wake up to the smell of coffee.  Every single morning, my dad would be up earlier than the rest of us.  You can take the boy off the farm but you can’t take the farm out of the boy.  But he would make a pot of coffee for my mom, so that she would have fresh coffee ready to go when she’d start her day.  Kindness.

That friend I briefly referenced from my dad’s birthday drive?  That guy is wild.  Everyone that knows him knows several pretty great stories.  A true party animal, the coolest guy in the room. 

That guy admires and adores my dad.  He calls my dad his brother, his mentor, his protector.  And when this guy is the one telling a story where my dad is involved, it’s easy to see why.  My dad always had his back.

He’s always had my back, too.

Picture teenage Mike stuck in the parking lot of the DMV, about to take his driver’s test.  I remember being diagonal, just trying to park or reverse out of my situation, unable to do either.  I was looking the other way, but apparently some guy was crowding me and giving me a hard time.

I heard the window on the passenger side go down.  My dad, the biggest sweetheart you’ll ever meet, suddenly, angrily yelled, “Hey screw you!” – that’s not the word he used – “You don’t like it!?”

The guy in the other car backed off.  Frankly, I wouldn’t have wanted any part of my dad if I had been that guy either.

Later, as we sat waiting our turn, the same guy glanced back at us from his spot in line.  He quickly looked away again, because my dad glared right back at him, like a challenge.

I don’t remember taking the test, but I vividly remember my dad defending me.

To be clear, my dad has never, ever been anything close to a violent person.  He’s about as peaceful and gentle as a human being could be.  But he has always been my guardian, standing by me no matter what.

Let’s go back further.  I’m maybe six years old and struggling to stay above water in a pool.  My parents and a couple of their friends were over on the other side, standing and chatting in the water.  I remember bobbing above and below the surface, calling out to my dad.  He promptly waded over and lifted me out to safety, with a grin on his face.

That’s pretty much how it’s always been.  If I’ve felt like I’m drowning at any point, my dad has been there to help lift me above the water and assure me that I’m doing just fine.

But more than anything, my dad has always been my compass.  If I’ve had a difficult decision to make, I’ve always run it by him.  I know the right decision will become a lot clearer after doing so.  He has always helped me find my path when I’ve been the most lost.

I’ve mentioned my triumphs in echo school.  What I haven’t really told you guys about is how much I struggled at the beginning.

I had done so much work just to get ready and hadn’t even started the program yet.  It seemed like it would never end, and it was just the beginning.  I saw the task to come and felt completely overwhelmed.

I sat down with my dad and vented to him about the insurmountable challenge ahead of me.  He brought up an old metaphor.

“How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

And then he continued to explain it in his very Dad way.

“At first, you see this elephant, and you think wow, that’s a lot of freaking elephant.  But you take a bite, chew it, swallow it.  Then you take another bite, chew it, swallow it.  You keep taking manageable bites, chewing them, and swallowing them.  And after a while you step back and look at the elephant that you’re taking bites of, and you realize that there isn’t as much elephant left.”

Short story long.

But it sank in.  That was just the right piece of wisdom I needed to motivate myself to keep going.  Before I knew it, I was through the first year of echo school, and it was flying by.

A year later, the echo class of all women and myself were headed for graduation.  The ladies all decorated their caps, so I joined in.  I didn’t have a lot of fancy symbols or hearts or phrases from school, or really any flair at all.  I simply made a few block letters and pinned this phrase to my cap: 

“I ate the elephant.”

My dad has always encouraged me.  He has always supported me.  He has always listened to me.  He has always showed me how to treat people.  He has always been my guide, and he has always had my back.

Compass.  Guardian.  Role model.  Legend.