"He was like a father to me. "
I can't count the number of times I heard that and the days and weeks after my father died. As an educator at one school for almost 50 years he touched countless lives. He taught class, coached, served as principal, was an elder in his church, taught Sunday school, led innumerable mission trips, and so much more. He was a good man. A great man even. The 1500 or so people at his funeral was a testimony to that. And he was like a father to so many.
But he was actually my father. I always had conflicting emotions when people told me how much he meant to them. I don't want to diminish what they had, but I don't wanna lose what he meant to me either. Sharing a father with the public happens in many ways, as in through a coach or teacher like mine, or maybe through a pastor or public servant. A man can influence the lives of multitudes of people in a myriad of ways. My fathers situation was unique in that he had a chance to impact people in some of their most formative years of junior high and high school. The lessons that he taught and the time he spent with people resulted in a cumulative impact that shaped and guided the lives of generations. At the small Christian school where he served it was not unusual for him to have both parents and their children in class decades apart.
When I was in my late 20's, my father approached me and told me that he had a confession: he worked too much while I was growing up. It might've been a confession to him, but it was not surprising to me. He admitted that he worked 80 or 90 hour weeks from the time I was about eight years old. By then I already had two older siblings, and would gain two younger ones soon thereafter. Even though he worked constantly, I was around my father all the time at the school; it's not like he was at a factory and I never got to see him. We were at ball games and school plays, and I would often go with him when he got to school at 6:30 in the morning. I was frequently with him, but he was always with other people during that time too.
That being said, I loved going to work with my father. Everyone knew Mr. Holmes, and everyone seemed to think that they were his favorite. He meant a lot to a multitude of people, and when he died they came out of the woodwork to say so. The few days and weeks after his death were both encouraging and draining. It was hard to grieve his loss while also rejoicing on the impact he made on others. In that time many people kept saying that phrase: "He was like a father to me. "
What does it mean to be like a father to somebody? Outside of the physical aspect, at its most basic it means to help somebody grow up. A father is someone who disciplines and celebrates, rejoices and laments, and guides by both word and deed. My father did all of those things for so many people, and I'm glad for that. A father teaches you trivial things like how to clean your room and serious things like how to grieve the loss of your parents. His impact on my own life is immeasurable. By his own admission, my father worked too much. But since he was always doing it serving other people, even becoming "like a father to them," he was able to have an impact far beyond my family.
Sharing a father with the public means when you rejoice in his impact you don't do it alone, and when you grieve his loss you don't do it alone either. In the middle of such a private event as grieving the loss of the man who defined your existence, you find yourself surrounded by others grieving with you. He made an impact on them, and they both rejoice in the legacy and grieve over the loss. At times the joy and grief become so mingled it becomes hard to tell one from the other.
Sharing a father with the public means that joy and grief are both multiplied upon his death. The joy multiplies in seeing the impact he made on so many, and the grief compounds knowing he won't be able to do it anymore. The hole that the loss leaves is seemingly in proportion to the number of lives he touched. Everyone has a story to tell, a favorite memory, a time he helped them out, helped them up, corrected them, or consoled them. Everyone knows your father and wants to talk about it.
The thing is, no one really knows a man like his children do. A man cannot hide his warts or his wisdom from his family for very long. He might have been "like a father" to those other people, and praise God for that. But he was a father to me, which gave me a unique relationship, a part of him that I don't have to share with the public. I don't regret sharing a father with the public, but I don't want to lose that part of him that only I know, a part that can't be remembered in eulogies or facebook posts. The part of a father that only his family knows is remembered in what he said as he woke you up in the morning, in the radio station he loved to listen to, the way he swerved the car to make you laugh or scream, or the worn out speeches he gave that you rolled your eyes at. It's even in the little things of the way he shook his keys as he walked nervously, the funny voicemails he left, or the way he dealt with setbacks in life.
There is so much of my fathers life that so many knew. But there are parts that they don't too. I know there are many situations where a man is an angel in public and a beast at home, and I'm incredibly blessed to have a father who was simply the same man wherever he went. While it's a privilege to mourn a life of impact like my father, it's still still sorrow. But I would rather mourn a life of impact than a life that could have been.
I'm grateful that his legacy lives on in the lives of the students and families he touched. Simply put, there are parts of him that the school and church never got to see, parts that are uniquely mine. I grieve over those things in a thousand different ways every day. He was like a father to so many, but he was a father to me, and the grief and joy that come with that are uniquely mine.
