Building Memories by Edmund Marsh

When my wife asked for a hint for the Father’s Day present I was hankering to get, I was stumped for a day or so. I don’t need a new tie or wallet, or the new garden tool that I sometimes suggest. My eventual answer didn’t surprise her, but she was amused. I’ve asked my daughter to answer two questions: What’s the origin of Father’s Day in our country, and does she think it’s worth observing?

I already know the answer to the first question. The idea was born in the mind of a young woman who admired her father, but didn’t gain traction until championed by men’s wear retailers hoping to profit from the gift-giving. I figure the story will entertain my daughter, since she’s savvy to the commercial aspect of holidays, and loves to pick out the logical fallacies in an advertiser’s argument.

But I’m curious to know how these feelings influence her answer to my second question. For me, the answer is yes, and I’m certain I’ll always honor the memory of my own father on Father’s Day.

My father liked to work. As a young man, he poured many hours into his automotive service business, and later his jobs as a school administrator and county school superintendent. Never content with the limits of a regular business day, he also enlisted early morning, evening and Saturday hours to work out a new bus route, write a grant proposal or even build a new set of shelves for an office or classroom. I was usually recruited to help with the handy-man projects, even at a young age. The skills I learned during our labor have served me for a lifetime, though I was hardly a cheerful apprentice at the time.

For him, on the other hand, work was a pleasure. But he worked at having fun, as well. He liked to hunt, and he was good at it, because he studied the game and practiced until he mastered it. As a boy, I benefited from his love of his hobby. We spent hours together during the season, and forged memories shared only by us.

Decades later, I was shocked the day he told me a brain tumor was the cause of his recent headaches. He was about the age I am now. In typical fashion, the morning after a surgery to remove the tumor, he was out of bed and ready to go home and back to work. He returned to his job to complete his last four-year term as county school superintendent at age 66.

In the early years of his retirement, he embarked on a flurry of building projects. First up was remodeling his own house, then my brother’s. And there were community jobs as well, such as constructing an outdoor pavilion attached to the old railroad depot for the local historical society and charitable handy-man work through his church.

At age 71, he agreed to devote his time to a multi-year project to help me rebuild the house I now live in. His age gave him an edge, for he was schooled in the construction of old houses. In the beginning, it was a chore to keep pace with him. I worked full-time as a physical therapist, with off hours spent on the house, but he worked even when I was away. He was driven by the ticking clock and wanted to help me while he still could. His mind was tireless and he pushed his body beyond the point of exhaustion.

A vivid memory illustrates his restless devotion: One weekend, as we sat in his truck gazing at the sagging joists and half-rotted decking of the dilapidated dock on my pond, he slyly asked what business I once plied. I sheepishly admitted I used to be a dock builder, and agreed my present dock was shameful. The following weekend, I was surprised to discover the dock had been repaired. My father had used his sleepless time in the wee hours to do the work by the headlights of his truck.

My father’s brain cancer returned a dozen years after he was first diagnosed. That time, he received computer-guided radiation that killed the tumor, but also some of the surrounding brain tissue. Initially, his cognition was noticeably affected, but he improved, to slowly decline in the ensuing years.

My father lived more than a decade after his second treatment, but he was not the same man. My overriding memories, however, are of the man who gave the last part of his best self doing all he could to help his family, until he could do no more. I hope my daughter will cherish a similar memory of me.