At Mass last night, the priest asked us to recall a memory about our fathers, and tears welled up in my eyes. What got touched? I wondered. My dad died twenty-four years ago, and I find myself thinking of him more frequently as time passes.
This morning, I explored my memory for hints at what had brought tears to my eyes and thought of some of his wisdom sayings.
My dad did not go in for hero worship. “Every man puts his pants on one leg at a time,” he would say when I would gush about someone too wonderful to be true. He believed that respect had to be earned, and that neither wealth nor fame automatically deserved respect. No one was better than anyone else in my dad’s eyes.
When I was sixteen and a food warning was issued about a possible cancer risk of eating bacon, I wanted my family to stop eating bacon. (My uncle Steve had died from cancer a few years earlier, and if there was a way to prevent the suffering he endured, I was all in.) My dad allowed that there might be a risk in eating processed bacon but ours came directly from a farm, so there was no risk. But he asked, “You think you are going to get out of this life alive if you don’t eat bacon?” And then added, “No one gets out of this life alive. Eat the bacon.”
My dad grew up during the Great Depression, and he was so proud that we did not have to go without food the way he had when he was growing up. “There is always meat on the table,” he would say with pride. A favorite memory is my dad barbecuing ribs or chicken in our backyard and how proud he was of the finished product.
My dad was a Detroit cop, and the adage I probably repeat most often is, “Most crimes are crimes of opportunity.” My dad did not lock his car, saying that if someone wanted what was inside, he would break the window to get it (and then my dad would have to replace not only what had been stolen, but also the broken window). His advice was, “Don’t leave anything of value visible in your car.”
When I was maybe eight years old, my dad advised me to walk on the side of the street facing traffic (the left side), saying that if someone was looking to snatch a kid, it was easier to take someone walking on the right side of the street because that kid would not know who was coming up behind her. By facing traffic, I would have the advantage of seeing who was coming, and I would be heading in the best direction to flee (the driver would have to reserve to get me).
The first time I saw my dad cry was at his mother’s funeral (I was eleven); I loved my dad’s vulnerability in that moment.
Madeline Bialecki 
A wise man, your dad, Madeline ❤
Yes he was, Rosaliene. He taught me to be pragmatic and to stand in reality. I think that is why I can be comfortable with people who are dying–it is all part of life.
Wonderful Dad. I never once saw my Dad express any emotions apart from anger, he even didn’t seem to smile much. Plodded on with a stiff upper lip. I wish I had seen another side to him.
I like to recall the time when I witnessed my dad being vulnerable and the times he took pleasure in being with us. There were dark times, too, which I do not deny. At the end of his life, my dad had dementia and he entered into it gracefully. The last years, he was sweet and kind and appreciative. He wasn’t always that mellow, but those last years left me with many wonderful memories of him. I am grateful.