I’ve written repeatedly over the years about my parents.  I couldn’t have chosen two people whose daughter I’d rather be.  The older I get, the more grateful for them I am.  

As every Father’s Day rolls around, I’m especially thankful to be my Daddy’s girl.  He was kind, devoted and loving.  His own dad, though, was not a model father.  I never met him, but Daddy spoke of him now and then.  The Elks Club in Catlettsburg, Kentucky saw far more of him than his family did.  Daddy clearly loved his father.  He fondly recalled his good qualities.  He neither complained about his shortcomings nor tried to ignore them.  He usually enjoyed his company when it was available.  On the plus side, his dad was fun, charming, athletic and sociable.  On the negative side, he was known to take a little too much pleasure in a fight.  Daddy’s grandfather had made considerable money in timber and coal, apparently enabling his son to avoid a real career, buying a home or paying rent.  The family homestead was a big brick house on higher ground overlooking the railroad tracks, the town and the flood-prone Ohio River that runs through it.  My great-grandfather built homes for any of his twelve children who wanted to settle on the surrounding hillside property (a true “holler” in Appalachian parlance.)   My grandfather played minor league baseball in his younger years and worked various jobs when necessary.  To Daddy and his older brother Paige, he was more like a pal than a father.  To his daughter, I’m not so sure.  I need to ask my cousins, my Aunt Jill’s children, this question.  To his youngest child, my Uncle Oren, his namesake, I believe he was largely absent.  

My grandfather died suddenly, when Daddy was about to turn twenty.  At the time, my father was stationed in Regensburg  with the U.S. Occupational Forces following the end of World War II.  He told me how his dad appeared to him in a vision or a dream on the night of his death.  He stood silently at the foot of Daddy’s army cot.  My father knew he was saying goodbye.  He received the official news of his father’s passing the next day by telegram.  He flew home soon afterwards, but missed the funeral.  He recalled feeling helpless, at a loss to be of use in easing his mother’s deep sadness.  His brother Paige had left home, but she was left a single parent to Jill, age fourteen, and little Oren, only six.  

Daddy had expected, and hoped, to return to Germany, but instead he completed his military service in the states.  On visits home, he stepped in as a sort of surrogate father figure to Oren.  The two were very close all their lives, until their deaths in 2016.  Oren was thirteen years younger than Daddy, but he died only weeks later.  

My father, I see now, began preparing to be a parent years before I was born.  He was generous in the time he spent with his much younger brother.  He happily taught Oren to catch and hit a ball; he answered his questions about social life and girls.  After my parents were married, the teenage Oren was a frequent visitor.  Some in the family had hoped Daddy would become a doctor, or a dentist like his uncle Jack.  My father, though, was squeamish at the sight of blood.  While he opted for a career in public health, Oren followed the medical path.  For three decades, he was a much-loved family practice physician in Ashland.  And as his mother’s youngest child, he remained her neighbor and fervent champion throughout his life.  She lived into her 80s and never remarried.  When Oren moved to a new home, he bought my grandmother a house a stone’s throw away.  

The last time I saw Oren was in Atlanta at my father’s memorial service ten years ago this August.  He died just over a month later, in early October.  

One day, I hope my uncle and I together can thank Daddy again for always being the kind and caring father we needed, at exactly the right time.