The Measure of a Man

I reread the posts I've written over Father's Day weekend over the past 5 years, and a common theme is my gratitude at learning to be a man from the example my father has set. In my quest for mature manhood I often find myself lacking in traditional manly skills. As I've reflected, though, I've seen many ways I do emulate my father's lessons in my life or seek to as I grow as a father. Most of the lessons I've written about can be traced to time together on the farm. The strongest man trait he's modeled most recently, however, has very little to do with sweat or manure or tools or truck rides. 

There are many measures of being a man and a multitude of skills that must be learned. The Art of Manliness blog and Twitter feed are favorites of mine, as they document requisite skills such as handling the transition of a new baby, wrapping your hands for boxing, most effectively and efficiently using a canoe paddle, negotiating for a used car, or wearing a pocket square, to name some of the recent posts. What I have yet to see from their website, though I am fortunate enough to see in real time through the real life man who has raised me, is how to be a son when it's not easy to be a son.

My grandmother, my father's mother, has seen a decline in health over the past several years. This is not news; it is life. This is what happens, and there is nothing unique in the story. But the story is unique for those in it. I have never watched it happen to my grandmother. My father has never watched it happen to his mother. It is an age old universal tale that only becomes true through experience. 

I remember a visit I made with Emily last spring to see Grandma in the hospital after a rather significant bout against illness. We were back in central Iowa for some event, and we took a morning to go see her in the hospital. I was taken aback by the reality I was faced with upon arrival. Keeping her awake during my visit was difficult, as was maintaining a coherent conversation when she was conscious. I fell to simply talking to her while she slept for the final 15 minutes of our visit, telling her about our lives, our plans, our children's activities. There was nothing else to do. When we left, it was unclear to me whether she would even remember that we were there. I walked out of the room and felt smothered by shock, gasping with the picture of decline I had been faced with.

My father faces that weekly. Or the possibility of that. She improves and declines, improves and declines, both mentally and physically. I don't think he's ever sure what he will experience until he gets there. But he's there. Almost every Friday night. He faces that, for his mother, because that's what a man does. 

Art of Manliness website take notice: there needs to be a guidebook on how to be a son. Many stages exist in the mother-to-son relationship, but it is the one in which my father currently finds himself that perhaps requires the most. 

Up until this point, as a son you spend a lifetime being the beneficiary in the relationship. You take. That's your job. She gives. You get advice, food, concern, scolding, support, attention, and love. For both of you, the concern is for you and your well-being; the conversations usually center on you. 

Then life changes, and there is little left to take. You are now asked to give. The relationship flips; the world and the rules and the comforts of familiarity are changed so that your mother is still your mother, but not quite. You now are asked to give: give attention and advice and food and scolding, and perhaps most of all, patience and love. And it's hard. But the hard part is not the giving; after all, you've had a model for that all your life. No, the hard part is seeing your mother in a position where she can't. 

This is the position in which I see my father now. It is squarely in this position that he sits as he drives the 40 minutes of highway on Friday nights, often alone, to offer to give to his mother. He walks into the room knowing it is likely he will listen to her stories, some of which he's already heard, some of which will be repeated inside of the time of the visit. He walks in knowing that she will probably get his name right, but maybe not his kids and grandkids. And he goes just about every week, to give.

I do not love visiting my grandmother. It is too hard of a thing to love. But I value being in her presence. I value the time and energy she's spent on me, value her smile and laugh when she finds them, value the life of raising my father into the kind of father who displays for his son how to love a mother. Every time I visit I not only see and value her, I see him as well.

The measure of a man, I'm finding, is likely not found in the tools he owns, the stuff he fixes, or in what he creates. Or at least it's not only in that. Rather, the heart of a man can be found in what he does on a Friday night, as his mother awaits, offering him nothing but the opportunity to be a good son. And in that, my father measures up mightily.

Thanks for another man lesson, Dad. Happy Father's Day.