Chapter 5/2

Daddy listened to his church members--actually to everyone in the community--better than he did to his three sons. Many of you might say the same thing about your fathers. Fathers often engage in more genuine dialogue on the job than they do at home. One reason is that, like my father, there are many dads who spend precious little of their time at home, and when they do get home, they are already talked out and tired. Maybe that is the reason. I don’t know. I do know that Daddy rarely seemed to hear me, and that there was so much I wanted to say. But, before I really got started trying to make some sort of connection, Daddy would stop me with clear dogmatic instructions guaranteed to get my life moving on the right track--before he even knew what I was attempting to say. He was good at discouraging dialogue.

For the first thirty years of my life I felt that he never really heard much I was trying to say. Across the next thirty-three we had a few times when we heard each other and responded to what we heard. Sometimes we argued late into the night, long after others had gone to bed, closing their doors to shut out some of our fierce and loud efforts to understand and to reconcile. And there were times--rare times--of confession. Daddy actually listened as I confessed fears, weaknesses, disappointment, and anger. To my amazement, on two or three occasions, Daddy confessed the same to me. On those occasions I was thrilled that he treated me as a real person, as a confidant, as someone he loved and trusted.