I am my dad’s story and he is mine.
My dad died last week.
We were expecting it. He had been on hospice for eight months. I had prayed to god, or the universe, or whatever power would hear me to release him from his suffering.
It still feels like a punch in the gut.
My dad was a larger than life kind of figure. There is much to say about him and about my relationship with him. Today, I want to talk about how he loved to tell stories.
He liked to create a good story - even with his very self. The picture here is him in a cowboy hat. I grew up in Canada and he liked to wear a cowboy hat around, and wave at strangers and say, “howdy!”. As a kid, this was supremely embarrassing. But, he was creating a persona. A story. Big stories or small. He loved to tell them. The bigger the better. He loved to embellish and didn’t let truth get in the way of a good story.
A lot of the stories he told were not strictly true. He understood that a story isn’t important because of its facts, it’s important because of what it makes you feel, if it makes you laugh, if it makes you brave, if it is memorable.
And a story has the power to create its own reality. There is nothing in the world more powerful than a good story.
He came from a poor and abusive family background. In his own life, he told himself the story about how he could do anything he put his mind to. Consequently, he rose above his upbringing and many, many times he just absolutely could do anything because that’s the story he told himself. I’m sure he won many a football game based on that story.
My brother tells a story about a time when my dad was coaching for the Detroit Lions. Dad was about 44 or 45 at the time. A little overweight. Not in the greatest shape. There was a young coach there and dad bet the young coach $50 that he could do a back flip from a standing still position. The young coach took one look at my dad’s physique and thought, “no way” and made the bet. Then my dad, from a standing still position launched into the air and did a back flip, landing on his feet.
Now, my dad was a natural athlete , strong and agile, but he had probably not done a standing back flip for 20 years. I am pretty sure he simply did it because he told himself he could. That’s just how he operated.
As his daughter, he told me that I could do anything I put my mind to. Which is also not strictly true. There are lots of things I put my mind to over the years that I found I couldn’t actually do. But the story gave me power to get through many a difficult situation in life and to do many things that I might not have done had I not been told that story.
He told me I could be anything I wanted to be. Which is also not strictly true. But the story gave me confidence to become someone I might not otherwise have become without that story.
The day dad died, there was an enormous electrical storm. Then, the power went out moments before he took his last breath. Right after he was gone, the sun burst out of the clouds and later that day, we had a rainbow. I like to think that he was making a grand exit. It’s a good story.
And sometimes, the story is better than the truth. It’s bigger and more important than the literal version of what is true. There are the things that happen in our lives and then there is the story we tell ourselves about those things. And between the two, it is the stories that make meaning, the stories that give us hope, the stories that make us strong, the stories that make us laugh and…
It’s the stories that make us live on eternally in the minds and hearts of those who loved us. Because we are one another’s story. I am my dad’s story and he is mine.
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