This Sunday, June 18, we will celebrate Father’s Day.
This special day is difficult for many people for different reasons. Some people either did not know their father, or
perhaps they had a less than stellar father in their life. This was not true
for me because I had a great daddy who taught me many valuable life skills and
lessons that I still practice today. Even though my daddy died 20 years age, I have tried to pass his lessons on to our
son and nieces and nephews who adored their Paw Paw.
In recent days I have been struggling with some difficult
issues in my life. At my age of 63, it is a daily pop quiz of which possible aches,
memory lapses, or challenges I may be asked to handle in the ever changing world around
me. The days of friendly people and caring communities seem to be fading fast,
and instead have been replaced with disrespectful and impatient younger people
with little time or patience for those of us who were not born in the
technology driven age. Truthfully, this is not a new issue. My daddy also had challenges in his lifetime. He was born in 1926, and during the
Great Depression of the 1930’s his life was a true survival story, not a
contrived TV show.
Daddy was one of eight children, and his mother died when he
was only 12. He grew up in rural Louisiana, and at that very early age he learned
to milk cows and was paid about 10 cents a day for this job. One of the many
life lessons he taught me was based on his vast experience with milking cows.
Since I was not a farm girl, it took more than one telling of the lesson for me
to grasp its importance, but after all these years, I can still hear Daddy’s voice in
my ear. Here is the lesson as he
explained it to me.
Apparently, milking requires a certain relationship between
the person doing the milking and the cow. I’ve been told that milk cows are
moody, but then since they are female, this is understandable. Milking requires
a skillful and firm touch for the milk to fill the bucket; otherwise, the milk splashes
all over the person and is wasted. Once the
bucket is full, it must be moved away from the cow immediately, or else the cow
will kick the pail and the milk is wasted.
So how does knowing about milking cows translate into a life
lesson? My daddy’s summation statement for this story was this: “Doing good things
for others with a bad attitude is like a cow that gives a good bucket of milk
and then kicks it over.”
I find it increasingly difficult as I get older to maintain
a good attitude. I could blame society in general or a list of
specific individuals who make it hard for me to be my wonderful self on a
consistent basis. The truth is that in recent days and months I have kicked
over more buckets than I have filled. I am not proud of this fact, but I am
trying to be honest. My attitude has been more like the smell of cow manure
than the sweet smell of a fresh glass of milk. I have let the simple joys of
life be obscured by the disappointments and distractions of this world.
Ultimately, my attitude is my responsibility, and I choose my responses or
reactions. Going through life and doing things for others from a resentful, or critical
spirit is being that cow kicking over the bucket.
So on this Father’s Day, I want to honor God and my daddy by
doing a better job of applying this lesson. I want to fill each “bucket” in my
life with kindness and caring for others and not kick it over with a bad
attitude. Thank you, Daddy for being my
greatest teacher and such a great dad.
