My father passed away nearly a year and a half ago. Hardly a day passes that I don't think of him and the legacy he left. Although he left little in the way of worldly goods, he did leave behind a legacy of family, beauty and God.
In some ways my life has mirrored Dad's. He put a lot of time, energy and money into education, which is really kind of amazing considering the start he got in life.
You see Dad's life began with the Great Depression. Like many parents they struggled to provide for the family. My dad's parents divorced shortly after Dad was born. His mother remarried when Dad was six.
Due to the struggles of the Depression, Dad's family moved from state to state around the country. As a result, he was never in one place long enough to get a strong education. When he graduated from high school, he told us he was barely able to read.
After high school, he joined the Navy during the Korean War. Reading was a primary activity for him during long periods aboard ship as it traveled the world. Naturally, his reading ability improved dramatically.
Upon returning from the war, Dad headed to college on a GI Bill where he studied history and subsequently earned his teacher's certificate. He taught grade school for a number of years in a small town on the coast of Oregon. After a while, though, he came to the conclusion that teaching in the school system was not a good fit for him. So we moved inland to Springfield, where Dad studied accounting during much of my teenage years.
He finished his studies at the same time I finished high school. He moved with my mom and sister to Seattle where he had taken an accounting job. My younger brother and I stayed behind in Oregon. My younger brother finished his senior year of high school, and I started at the community college in the area.
The main point to all this is that Dad pursued education through all the time I knew him. Even after he moved to Seattle, after about five years he was back in school taking art classes whenever he could. Often taking classes at the University of Washington.
It was when Dad started taking art classes and starting to reignite his passion for capturing the beauty in the world that he seemed to come to life. Throughout my childhood, Dad was often busy studying or working. We didn't spend much time together, and, unfortunately, we didn't have much of a relationship at that time.
After he started pursuing art as a passion, his life began to spring up within him. He began to open up to us kids and we started to see light in his eyes and excitement and passion in the work he was doing. I am grateful for the change of life that art brought to my dad and the relationship it opened up for us.
I remember frequently going out with Dad. One simple incident in particular stands out in my mind. We had stopped our walk along the boardwalk bordering the Puget Sound near his home. He began to describe the light and the shadows he found in the evening sky. With his developing artistic eye, he was able to see things that I wasn't. He saw depth and color that I had taken for granted.
My own artistic vision didn't change at that time, but my appreciation for Dad did. I began to see my Dad as an artist. He was able to see the world around us through the eyes of an artist. I had studied, among other things, art history in college, so I knew many of the great painters and sculptors since the Renaissance. I recognized art that stirred my soul, but I didn't see the world through the eyes of an artist.
Somehow that experience has stuck with me.
As I went through my career, I kept looking for a similar role that would help me see the world anew. Something that I felt was mine. Until recently, I struggled like Dad did before he found his passion for art. I have always made more money than Dad did but it wasn't fulfilling. I was good at what I did, but I never felt alive doing it. It was a means to an end.
I am grateful for the legacy my father left me of his love of art. Art is not only rewarding on its own, but I believe Dad's passion for art opened something in me that made me long for finding my own way in life.
More on that later.
No comments:
Post a Comment