Thought for today:
"Had my father lived until today, he would have been one hundred years old. He died twenty-five years ago and prior to his death, he suffered in silent pain for around two years. He was a strict man who was born in County Kilkenny, Ireland, from the poorest of upbringings, yet he remained a proud man throughout his life. Though he never possessed much, he wanted little, and like my mother, generosity was no stranger to him. He was the most modest man I ever knew and not once did I hear him boast about the things that he was certainly most proud of and was entitled to boast about, like having played international football for both his county and country.
Being relatively unschooled (leaving to start work before his teens),my father never prized education as a means of personal advancement. To him, the honesty of the worker's labour in being prepared to do a good day's work for a fair day's wage was the true bench mark of a person's character, which he never failed to meet. He was a committed Roman Catholic in the following of his religion and was so disciplined/rigid in his faith, that he would have sooner missed every meal for a week before he'd ever consider missing mass any Sunday morning! Indeed, had the Pope declared in a pronouncement of infallibility, that entry into heaven could not be gained by anyone who would not perform either this or that every morning for the rest of their life, whilst stood on their head in a bucket of ice-cold water, my father would have done it unquestioningly, without second thought. The one character from the Holy Bible he most represented was Abraham whom God commanded, 'Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah; and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.' (Gen.22:1-2)
Until my late teenage years, I found my father a hard man to follow and live up to. He commanded my respect, my sincere love and my unshakable belief that he was a good man who always did the things he thought was right, however wrong to others it might have seemed at the time, and whatever the consequences his actions attracted. It therefore became easier to accept in him, things I would never have accepted in another man. I frequently remarked to my friends that I would be happy were I to turn out half the man my father was!
Then, as I entered manhood, I became a much more discerning son and objective person than my father had ever been and gradually I took dad down from the pedestal I'd placed him on since childhood and positioned him as an equal alongside myself and other men. Over the next ten years, I was to learn things about dad which made him a less perfect pillar of respectability that the community and myself had always thought him to be. I started to see his failings of character in places where previously my love for him had blinded me and my mind dare not take me to. I still saw dad as being a 'good man,' yet my vision was no longer rose coloured. I could now see dad as being a more flawed a man who had travelled through life with the trappings of sometimes uncertainty and the weaknesses that most men occasionally display.
If only we were able to turn back the hands of time, how much wiser would we not be! I was a man before I started to see my dad for the man he truly was and by the time he died, I was thankful that I'd got to understand and know him better in his later years. He mellowed in mannerisms and softened in attitude after my mother died and showed himself as being a much more vulnerable being than I'd previously believed capable of.
During his last years of life, while the strength of my love for him never waned, I started to redirect it towards the man I now knew better. I began to respect many of his former traits a little less than before, but I now liked him much more as a person and a dad than I had ever liked him. Through my greater understanding of him and seeing his vulnerabilities, made him more human in my eyes, drawing him closer to my affections than he'd ever been, instead of remaining an emotionally more distant dad to idolise! In his final days, his body hurt considerably and for the very first time in his life, he became a man who was not afraid to show his tears and express his pain.
Happy hundredth year, Dad. I love you. Your eldest son, Billy x." William Forde: March 21st, 2016.
https://youtu.be/psytGX8LkGY
"Had my father lived until today, he would have been one hundred years old. He died twenty-five years ago and prior to his death, he suffered in silent pain for around two years. He was a strict man who was born in County Kilkenny, Ireland, from the poorest of upbringings, yet he remained a proud man throughout his life. Though he never possessed much, he wanted little, and like my mother, generosity was no stranger to him. He was the most modest man I ever knew and not once did I hear him boast about the things that he was certainly most proud of and was entitled to boast about, like having played international football for both his county and country.
Being relatively unschooled (leaving to start work before his teens),my father never prized education as a means of personal advancement. To him, the honesty of the worker's labour in being prepared to do a good day's work for a fair day's wage was the true bench mark of a person's character, which he never failed to meet. He was a committed Roman Catholic in the following of his religion and was so disciplined/rigid in his faith, that he would have sooner missed every meal for a week before he'd ever consider missing mass any Sunday morning! Indeed, had the Pope declared in a pronouncement of infallibility, that entry into heaven could not be gained by anyone who would not perform either this or that every morning for the rest of their life, whilst stood on their head in a bucket of ice-cold water, my father would have done it unquestioningly, without second thought. The one character from the Holy Bible he most represented was Abraham whom God commanded, 'Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah; and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.' (Gen.22:1-2)
Until my late teenage years, I found my father a hard man to follow and live up to. He commanded my respect, my sincere love and my unshakable belief that he was a good man who always did the things he thought was right, however wrong to others it might have seemed at the time, and whatever the consequences his actions attracted. It therefore became easier to accept in him, things I would never have accepted in another man. I frequently remarked to my friends that I would be happy were I to turn out half the man my father was!
Then, as I entered manhood, I became a much more discerning son and objective person than my father had ever been and gradually I took dad down from the pedestal I'd placed him on since childhood and positioned him as an equal alongside myself and other men. Over the next ten years, I was to learn things about dad which made him a less perfect pillar of respectability that the community and myself had always thought him to be. I started to see his failings of character in places where previously my love for him had blinded me and my mind dare not take me to. I still saw dad as being a 'good man,' yet my vision was no longer rose coloured. I could now see dad as being a more flawed a man who had travelled through life with the trappings of sometimes uncertainty and the weaknesses that most men occasionally display.
If only we were able to turn back the hands of time, how much wiser would we not be! I was a man before I started to see my dad for the man he truly was and by the time he died, I was thankful that I'd got to understand and know him better in his later years. He mellowed in mannerisms and softened in attitude after my mother died and showed himself as being a much more vulnerable being than I'd previously believed capable of.
During his last years of life, while the strength of my love for him never waned, I started to redirect it towards the man I now knew better. I began to respect many of his former traits a little less than before, but I now liked him much more as a person and a dad than I had ever liked him. Through my greater understanding of him and seeing his vulnerabilities, made him more human in my eyes, drawing him closer to my affections than he'd ever been, instead of remaining an emotionally more distant dad to idolise! In his final days, his body hurt considerably and for the very first time in his life, he became a man who was not afraid to show his tears and express his pain.
Happy hundredth year, Dad. I love you. Your eldest son, Billy x." William Forde: March 21st, 2016.
https://youtu.be/psytGX8LkGY
