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| just a typical weekend for dad. |
when we moved in a little more than a year ago, we sort of coasted on all that had been done by the previous owners in preparation for the market, as well as the projects ticked off after the inspection. but, you know, a year of sheltering five people takes its toll and the projects have started piling up. there are furnace filters to replace, a lawn to aerate and reseed, wall cracks to repair, faulty faucets to fix, insect invasions to resolve, and on and on and on.
it's pretty daunting.
when i was growing up, my mom was the chef and the parent volunteer and the carpool driver and the back-to-school shopper and the birthday-party-planner. my dad was responsible for all home maintenance. he wore flannel shirts on the weekends and usually had sawdust in his hair or paint on his jeans and he had to clean his hands real good before dinner.
because i was an only child, and my dad worked full-time during the week, i could usually be found on Saturdays and Sundays wherever he was. i accompanied him on runs to the hardware store. i wore goggles when he used the radial saw in the basement. i sat in the flower beds while he did weeding and mulching. i ran my Matchbox cars through his big sand pile every time (which was every summer) he rearranged the bricks in the patio.
as i grew older, i observed less and participated more. suddenly i was the one doing the mulching, wielding the chainsaw (much to my mother's horror), painting the moulding, removing the screens and cleaning the windows in preparation for winter. i'm sure i complained about some of it—especially the Saturday mornings my dad woke me up at an ungodly hour, claiming "we're losing light!"—but you know what? i think he knew what he was doing.
at age thirty-eight and with only limited experience as an actual house-owner, i am still learning how to properly care for it. but i have to admit: i have a pretty solid foundation (no pun intended), thanks solely to all the years i spent as my dad's tireless apprentice.
i was thinking about all of this on Monday afternoon. i had showed up at my parents' the day before with a fresh-baked apple crisp and a plea for my dad to come over and help me with a few projects that required guidance and more than one person. he gladly agreed (and he would have even if i hadn't made him an apple crisp, but it never hurts to sweeten the deal).
he showed up right on time, at one o'clock on Monday, just as i got all the kids down for naps. and as we checked things off my to-do list, i thought about how hard my dad has always worked. when i was growing up, he worked like a dog at the office all week. on the weekends, he worked like a dog around the house, from just after breakfast until dinnertime. and though i was happy he let me join him in his chores, i remember never quite understanding why he couldn't just relax when he was home.
now, of course, i get it.
and what i also get, and what i'm so thankful for, is that we bonded during all those chores and projects. that was our time to connect, to learn from each other, to just be together. not only was i learning how to properly pull a weed or patch a hole in drywall or use a tape measure, i was acquiring confidence, self-sufficiency. and i was learning a lot about unconditional love.
when Michael and i first moved into our house, my parents came over with two big books—Reader's Digest guides to pretty much everything you need to know about fixing anything around your home. my dad says occasionally says, when i come to him with a house question, "you know, this is probably in those books we got you..."
what i realized on Monday, as we worked together to restring a faulty window blind and clean up the front lawn with an edger, it always has been—and always will be—so much better learning it from my dad.
mbm
