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Featured writer, Patty Zemanick
Gifts
from a Father
A child
was born, the father – celebrating new life – planted rows of pine trees.
Five
more children would follow. With each new birth, the father returned
to his sanctuary in the woods and planted more trees. Today, those
trees stand tall and proud… a living symbol of a father’s love.
A string
of children waiting for the school bus to arrive. Brothers and sisters,
so close in age they appear as stair steps. It is early morning in
the countryside, late November. Cold air. Drizzle. Each
child’s head adorned with a bright orange knit hat. A blaze of color
in rich contrast to the gray sky. The hats – embarrassing for the
children, yet necessary from their father’s perspective. It was hunting
season and he didn’t want his children, his treasure, mistaken for deer.
A teenage
daughter, headed for Quebec with the French Club. Her first trip
away from home. She’d be gone for several days. Just weeks
before the trip, the evening news reported that a fire completely consumed
a hotel. Many were killed in the accident because flames blocked
their exits. While packing for the trip, the father handed his daughter
a 50-foot rope with a knot tied every two feet – a makeshift ladder.
He instructed his daughter that when she arrived at the hotel she needed
to take the rope out of her suitcase, tie it to the leg of her bed – then
used to descend from her hotel room window should a fire erupt and prevent
her from safely exiting the building. A 50-foot rope in the suitcase
– embarrassing for the daughter, yet necessary for the father’s piece of
mind.
A daughter,
now a single mom, tries to create a new home for her children. She
finally finds an apartment that “feels like home,” but the rent is high
– yet she signs the lease believing that somehow it will be ok. And that
God will help make ends meet. When she arrived at the leasing office
to complete the paperwork, she discovered that her father had wired her
first two-month’s rent to the office to help her get back on her feet.
The same
single mom, working full time, driving her children to and from sports
practices and games… Finally home (a real home – not an apartment
this time). Groceries to unload. Dinner to be made. Weary.
She finds a note on the kitchen counter…
3:05
p.m.
Yard
mowed, walked the dog, stop up for dinner if you’d like.
Love,
Dad
The same
Dad, St. Joseph’s hospital… lying on a gurney as it moved quickly along
the hallway headed toward surgery… open-heart surgery… his adult children
walking at the same pace just behind him. At the surgical unit –
the doors automatically opened. As the attendant pushed him through
the entrance Dad yelled out… “I love you guys!”
Gifts…
each of them… Gifts from Albert James Zemanick, Jr. – my Dad. Gifts
to my family with life lessons attached. Lessons of love, compassion,
generosity, and humility. Gifts that reflect the face of God.
If you
then, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will
your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!
Matthew 7:11
And He
does…
For God,
our Heavenly Father, who blessed my family with such a wonderful earthly
father… heard our prayers. He walked Dad through the valley of the
shadow of death and safely delivered him back to us… for yet another season.
Patty
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