To be a Man

One real concern I've had over the past couple of years is that I would never really turn into a man. As I write this, I realize that to be a horribly ambiguous statement, so let me clarify. A man, to me, knows how to fix stuff. He knows how to build stuff, he's got a lot of tools, and he's got a truck to haul his tools or the stuff he's fixing. All I have is a truck. I don't know how to fix my truck when it breaks, I struggled mightily in "building" a roll-top cover for it, and mostly I haul nothing. I'm not a man. My goal is to some day be a man. My children will want a man in the house.

Luckily, my father is teaching me about being a man. He's got the truck full of tools and the know-how to use them. When he comes to my house, he asks for the list. "The list" is all the stuff I don't know how to do that I'm too cheap to pay for someone else to do. This is what he does for me. He comes to my house to work; if I pay close attention, I also get to learn. I learned English and athletics while growing up. That led me into a career, and I don't regret it. Now, however, I want to learn how to be a man. Slowly, one project at a time, I'm learning from my father.

I don't know how many 30 year olds will admit to needing their father. Our individualistic culture has encouraged us to not need anybody. I've got no problem, though, admitting that I need mine.

Here's the thing, though. In all of this learning, I've learned something completely different and more important about being a man and being a father. My dad gives his kids what he can give. He does for us what he can do and is available to give what he's got. I look around my house, and half of the furniture in it has been created by him. I can't walk through a room in my house without pointing to something Dad has made better. He knows what he has to offer, he recognizes need, and he's there.

I doubt I'll ever make furniture. I hope to get good with power tools someday, but mostly I just hope to learn their names soon. What I can do, though, if I'm going to be a man in my house, is give what I've got to give, whatever that is, wherever my kids are. My father taught me that.