Things My Dad Taught Me ~ Part 1

Upon losing my father, I wanted to commit myself to making sense of all the lessons that he had tried to teach me in life.

There has been an unfortunate problem however.

It’s taking me years to remember what some of these lessons were.

And that isn’t all. I also want to know how I can apply these lessons to my own life. Then hopefully, I will be reconcile the fact that dad had indeed been a pretty good father after all.

Now, five years later, slowly, very slowly these lessons are beginning to become clearer to me.

Take today for example. I’m far from home on holiday. And as I pack a newly purchased book into my bag, one of those lessons came crashing home.

The scene was the beginning of new year of school for me, primary to be exact. I had just been assigned several new school books which included an elementary reader, math, and geography book.

He led me to the kitchen table where my newly acquired text books were waiting. He had a pencil, scissors, and ruler in one hand and a large piece of heavy paper in the other. His preferred choice of paper media was usually a recycled piece of wrapping paper, an irrelevant street map, or an old poster. However, I do remember times when a newspaper, or the funny papers would do in a pinch.

With that, he would sit me down, and with pencil, ruler and patience he began to measure and mark. With several long straight lines here and a couple of notches there he would then take the scissors and carefully cut along the pencil drawn edges. He finished off with two neat folds here, another two folds there, and

...VOILA! We now had a bookcover.

My father would then take the front cover of the school book and slip it into into the neatly measured front flap. Then he would do the same with the back cover.

In teaching me the importance of these homemade book-covers, I learned several different things.

First, it taught me that books are to be handled with both care and respect. I still have books that dad gave me. The ones with these sorts of covers are still in their prime. The other books are not so lucky.

Secondly, it is indeed a noble thing to take care of something that does not belong to you. I was always proud to give all borrowed books back to the school at the end of the year, intact and with few blemishes.

Last, I learned that you can take something which is otherwise considered useless and unwanted and turn it into something with the potential to be both useful and meaningful.

And there you have it. It only took me years to figure this particular lesson out, but I finally got it.

Thanks dad!