Life Lessons I Learned from My Fathers
By Russ Towne
I have a sign on the wall in front of my desk:
That message has had a profoundly positive impact on my relationships and life. It was forged largely from how I was fathered.
Terrors at Night
My first memories as a very young child are of laying in bed trembling night after night, blankets tightly clenched around my neck, as terrifying sounds assaulted me from the other side of my bedroom door. Wave after devastating wave of screams, the crash of objects being thrown, and occasionally the sound of glass shattering against a wall or floor. The two people I loved the most in my little world fought long into the night, night after night.
Finally, my biological father left when I was about 4½. I was the oldest of three siblings and our mom was pregnant with a fourth. Despite his marriage vows, he left his wife and children destitute, paid not a penny in support, and never contacted us again.
My young mother had just a high school education. The only jobs she could find were in fast food restaurants, and the cost of paying for childcare for four young kids while she worked ate up all or nearly all of her already meager wages.
We’d recently moved across the country to a state that declared us aliens and ineligible for state aid due to the short time we’d resided there. We were three thousand miles away from Mom’s family and friends, who themselves were either too poor or too young to help her. Despite my mother’s best efforts, we nearly starved to death.
I came to hate my biological father for cruelly abandoning us and leaving us to starve.
Rescued By an Admirable Man
Another of my earliest memories was sitting in a church watching my Mom in a white dress standing next to a man who had only recently come into our lives. About a year after being abandoned by my biological father, my mother met a young man named Sam who had just been honorably discharged from the Navy, and they fell in love.
Sam was just 22 years old at the time, and it’s likely his family and friends tried to talk him out of getting entangled with a woman who already had four young children. But the love he had for my mother grew to encompass her children of another man and he married her, making a vow not only to love and protect my mother but to do the same for me and my three siblings.
Unlike my biological father, Sam kept his promises to all five of us. Even at such a young age, Sam was simply the type of man whose word was his bond. He didn’t know any other way to be. He often worked two full-time back-to-back jobs to keep us all fed, clothed, and sheltered. I can scarcely imagine how he could manage all this, but somehow he did it.
I never once heard him complain. He was an honorable, humble, and hardworking man. For such men, once they give their word, quietly doing all they must to keep their promises is as natural as breathing. They can’t conceive of any other outcome.
Sam soon legally adopted all of us. I never knew him as my stepfather. He was always “Daddy” and then “Dad” to me and my siblings.
I grew to admire Sam. He personified humble and uncomplaining courage, integrity, perseverance, and sacrifice. Sam wasn’t a martyr or a saint, but he likely saved my life, and that of my Mom and siblings. I tried to emulate his many positive attributes as I grew up.
Unquenchable Curiosity Demanded I Reach Out to the Father Who Abandoned Me
I grew up, married young, and we had a baby boy thirteen months later. When I was about 22 years old, I had a dream about my biological father being killed in a car crash. When I woke up I realized I did not know whether my biological father was actually dead or alive. Something about that dream ignited a curiosity that burned so brightly in me that it at least partially displaced the hatred that had festered for so long. I had to find out.
This was in the days before the Internet, but I eventually found a genealogist who researched my biological father’s family tree. He connected me to one of my biological father’s sisters. She was kind, supportive, and helpful. She told me he was alive, and would probably want to hear from me.
At that point, my curiosity turned to fear. Questions boiled in me. What if he doesn’t want to hear from me? Will he be concerned about me wanting something from him? Will he be afraid I might want vengeance? I asked his sister – who was also my aunt – not to tell him I contacted her. I told her that I hadn’t made up my mind about contacting him yet. She promised she wouldn’t.
It took me two weeks to decide, but I finally pushed my doubts and fears aside and dialed the phone number his sister had given to me. I held my breath as I heard the phone ringing.
My fears were unfounded. Not only was he happy to hear from me, but he wanted to get on a plane right away to meet me. I hadn’t thought that far ahead and certainly hadn’t expected that!
Now a new set of fears and questions confronted me. Do I really want to meet him? What if he’s the selfish and bad man I grew up believing he was? And if he is, do I really want him meeting my wife and young children? What if he doesn’t like me or I don’t like him?
The Fateful Meeting
Early in our call, I learned he’d remarried but never had any other children. I tried to hide the reluctance in my voice as I invited him and his wife to visit us, but I didn’t want these strangers staying in our home, so I suggested a nearby hotel where they could stay.
When the time came to meet them, I quickly discovered that he was a man of few words and that we had virtually nothing in common. Our conversation was forced and uncomfortable despite the clear effort we both made.
I tried hard to find things I could respect about my biological father. After all, his blood coursed through my veins. Unfortunately, he exhibited almost none of the virtues I’d hoped to find in him.
I told him the impact his actions had on me and my family. I made clear what I thought about him for abandoning his family, not ever supporting nor even contacting us. I really let him have it. It felt good to vent the pain.
It took courage for him to face me. To his credit, he stood in the fire of condemnation for his actions as a young man and didn’t flinch, deflect, or become defensive when I confronted him. Instead, he acknowledged and apologized for what he’d done. That is perhaps the only thing I respect about him, but it is something.
He explained that he knew that with all the yelling, screaming, and throwing of things, it wouldn’t be long before either my Mom or he would get seriously physically hurt. Things were escalating and he knew that either he or she needed to leave, and that with the kids so young he thought we needed our mother more than we needed him. So he left.
I told him that I could see the logic in that decision, but that I still thought it was unforgivable that he just abandoned us and didn’t even try to help support us. I saw great regret in his unhappy eyes. He apologized and agreed that what he’d done was unforgivable.
I forgave him anyway. It was largely a selfish choice. I was tired of carrying the burden of all the anger, hatred, and other negative emotions I’d felt for so long. And I could see the relief that my forgiveness gave to him.
My siblings each decided to meet with him separately. Each told him what they thought of him and his actions, and that they wanted nothing further to do with him. He, and I, respected their decisions.
Despite living thousands of miles away, I frequently visited my biological father. I didn’t want him to die a lonely, childless old man. When he died, other than his wife, my wife and I were the only ones who got to the hospital in time to be with him, and we flew across the country to do it. It was an ugly death. He died a sad, lonely old man, full of regrets. But he knew his son had come to say a final goodbye. At least that was something.
When the priest interviewed his wife for information about him for his funeral, his wife told him I was his only child. Though I’d have answered the question differently since he sired three other children, sadly in some ways there was truth in her reply.
Both Fathers Instilled Lessons, and I Am Grateful
I am grateful for the role my biological father played in my life because he modeled powerful lessons about a kind of manhood that I never wanted to exhibit toward my own children or my wife. My biological father gave me the great gift of life. I gave him back the gift of forgiveness and unconditional love. By the time he died, I had been a father and knew in the deepest part of me that my sons loved me unconditionally. I know first-hand how great a gift that is, and wanted him to have it.
Throughout my childhood and adult life, Sam, my adopted Dad, kept his promises. He watched over and supported me as I grew to adulthood. He was there for my marriage and the birth of my children and has been a grandfather to them. He modeled the kind of father I wanted to be. I’m blessed to still have Dad in my life.
Over time, I asked both my biological father and my Dad everything I felt curious about their backgrounds: their childhoods, military experiences, family relationships, why they did what they did. I wanted the information for myself, but also for my children and future generations.
What I didn’t need to ask my fathers about were their values. The way they lived their lives, treated people, and honored or dishonored their promises told me all I needed to know about who they were inside. The questions I asked helped me understand why they were the way they were, and provided all the perspective I needed.
In dealing with both of my fathers, I learned to cast away expectations and to focus on being grateful for all the blessings both provided and forgiving everything else. Eventually, as I became a father myself, I came to see that it was nearly all blessings, even if it often felt like anything but blessings at the time.
Focusing on things for which I was grateful enabled me to have richer, deeper, more satisfying relationships with both fathers. I wouldn’t be the man, husband, father, or grandfather I am today, if not for both men. Through them, I learned the lessons so powerfully captured in that sign.
Key Take-aways:
Abandonment by my biological father left me, my mother, and my siblings, destitute, and I hated him for it.
The courage and devotion of my adopted father – who will forever be Dad to me – saved us from an awful fate.
In confronting my biological father later in life, I could release my burdens of anger and hatred, and find forgiveness for him.
The lessons I learned from my fathers, in both how to be and how not to be, have made me a better man, husband, and father.
