This would be one of those lessons that I mentioned that wasn’t really a result
of dad’s battle with cancer. It is very much one of those lessons that one
needed to be quietly observing to even notice.
Growing up in a small town, it seemed like jobs were hard to
come by. My dad never really had a career to speak of where he did one job
forever. He did what he needed to do to support our family to the best of his
ability. It seemed like he was always doing odd jobs for a little money on the
side. He was kind of a jack of all trades… except for plumbing! Whenever we
needed a plumber, my mom would take care of fixing things and if she couldn’t
fix it, she hired someone because she found it was cheaper to pay a plumber
than to pay to repair the things that dad broke while he was trying to be a
plumber!
One of the jobs he did was teaching alternate school. He was
given a desk in the corner of the bus barn out behind the school and was
assigned to try to teach the students that had disciplinary problems and
weren’t otherwise allowed to attend school with the general population. These
would be the kids that were suspended or expelled from school. I recall that it
involved a dozen or so kids at any one time.
While I was home visiting one day, I went to see him at his
little one room school and was very confused about his situation. It was
a struggle for him and it appeared, from the outside looking in, that he was
seriously underpaid and very underappreciated by the students and those to whom
he reported. Later that evening, I asked
him why he bothered to do it. The kids were unruly and didn’t seem to listen to
him and he was being paid peanuts compared to what a teacher inside the school
across the parking lot was paid. He simply put his arm around my shoulder and
said. “Those who deserve love the least, need it the most.”
He was certainly not suggesting that any one of those
students was undeserving of love. The point he was trying to make was that all
they needed was some love and someone to believe in them to make a difference
in their lives. Many of these kids graduated or attained their GED, due to the
fact that he was willing to work in a job simply because he saw potential in
these kids and he didn’t judge them for their poor choices or even their
continued bad behavior. He just loved them.
He knew all too well what it was like to make poor choices
in life and to have people love you through those poor choices and stand by
your side and allow you to grow and rise to your potential.
Over the years, on a regular basis, I find myself pondering
this lesson and even sharing it with others. It taught me to look beneath the
bad behavior and low self-esteem of people and see the good in them and to
imagine their potential. Perhaps much the way God looks at us and our
shortcoming and sees the good in us and knows of the great things we can
accomplish if only we could believe in ourselves. Regardless of what bad
choices we may have made or how often we continue the same mistake.
Another example of this lesson was the way my dad coached
little league. I remember that our summers were spent at the ballpark. My dad
coached little league in the afternoons, played on a men’s league in the
evenings and usually umpired any game that he was not playing or coaching. For
the purposes of this lesson, I want to focus on the little league.
To say my dad was intensely competitive would be a gross
understatement! He lived and died by the outcome of a sporting event. It didn’t
matter if it was little league baseball, church basketball or watching the
Braves on TV. His intensity and competitiveness are a whole other lesson!
But when it came to little league, he was a gentle giant. He
was most definitely in it to win it, but to him, the boys were more important
than the outcome of the game. He had some great players on his team throughout
the years, but he also picked kids that were not the biggest and fastest kids
in the pool. He loved them all and saw great potential in every one of them. He
treated them equally and fairly. Many of the other coaches took things way to
seriously by yelling and belittling the boys. In every other sport in his life,
my dad was one of those people who took the game too serious, but in little
league, it was all about the boys. Gently teaching them life lessons was more
important to him than the win and regardless of the outcome, he frequently
treated the team to root beer floats at the A & W after the game to
congratulate them on their efforts.
Many of these boys, later in life, have commented to me on
how his example and his interest in them made a difference in their lives.
“…if ye have done it unto the least of these…” comes to mind
when I think of the example of how he treated the youth in the valley.
For my dad it was never about the money…. It was about being
there when someone needed a person to believe in them and loving them despite
their choices. It was all about the worth of a soul. He came full circle with
this idea. He gave love and then, when he needed love in return, he was loved,
which enabled him to pay it forward and give more love. It really is a
beautiful lesson to have learned.
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