#52 Stories--Story # 36

What is something you never understood or appreciated about your father until much later in life?

I know my dad would tell us of the poverty he knew as a child and the idea of not having what you needed unless you got it for yourself. That was hard to understand as a child and young person because my life was always pretty blessed.  We had what we needed--but not always what we wanted--and that was probably for the best. We learned to make do with that we had sometimes or work and save and plan for whatever else we wanted.  Nothing was supposedly given to us--even though I see now that so much was! He told us those heart breaking kind of stories of his childhood on the railroad or living in little homes without electricity or water, and it made our lives seem pretty cushy. I never felt like we we missing much. We had opportunities poured out on us as we grew up--raising animals, riding bikes, using our imagination, exploring new places--that helped us see how blessed we were.

As a child myself I didn't see the wisdom in him telling us those stories though.  It just made his childhood sound sad and pretty unhappy.

He has talked in the past before about his parents and what they were like--especially before they were converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  My gramps was not a happy man when he drank, and my gram was a scared young woman, just older than a girl herself. I don't think joining the church was an immediate turn about for them, but it gave them a new way of seeing their lives and their family. Then finally when they did get active and were living the gospel fully, there were many changes in his parents that he didn't get the benefit of as a child himself. I look at this now and see how much more the gospel meant to him that my sister and I had the "after" portion of the life he had with parents who lived the gospel. We weren't perfect at it, but I can see now how much that meant to him.