Never go without saying it

Glen William Turner came from rough stock, from coal miners from West Virginia.
They apparently were very poor, but truthfully. I know little about his family, and I haven’t seen any of them in decades.
As I grew up, my Dad worked away from home a lot, and he drank whiskey when he was home. Once he spent an entire fall working in New Jersey. Another time, he bought a trailer and lived in it while working in Vicksburg, Miss., as they built a new bridge over the Mississippi River. I know he was good with his tough, callused hands, good at building things, even working on cars, pretty much good at all the things I never was nor will be.
I know he liked sports, but we never really talked about them, never lived out the Field of Dreams final scene by throwing a ball back and forth. I know he voted Democrat when he voted, was union above all things.
And I’m absolutely certain I was disappointing to him in my own way.
He wanted someone to hunt with. I didn’t like guns, and especially didn’t get the rising before dawn thing so I could shoot something. Instead, he got a kid who talked to an imaginary friend, Jaboni, and read Marvel comics and wrote a book at age 12. He wanted someone to share his iron-worker, construction career with; I quit the only summer job that we ever shared essentially because it was too darn hot and I wasn’t happy with heights.
I’ve been told this was a cultural thing, that men were “different” in his generation, but my father never once told me he loved me, and he sure knew nothing of hugs and such.
Truth is, oil and water really had nothing on us. We didn’t mix well, at all. Not all families are Happy Days, apparently.
Gary Smalley and John Trent, authors of The Gift of the Blessing, propose that for years after we move away from home physically, we still remain chained to the past emotionally. That our lack of approval from our parents in the past keeps a feeling of genuine acceptance from others in the present from taking root in our lives
So, I worked myself into a frenzy that money couldn’t calm. I worked and I worked, and by the world’s thoughts, I was a success. But truthfully, I was nothing I would call successful. Writing awards didn’t compensate, didn’t fill the hole I felt. The next promotion didn’t do it, either.
My father died April 3, 1989 from liver and lung cancer. Months before his death, he accepted Jesus as his savior. He stopped drinking, and he switched his tobacco usage from cigarettes to chew. When he went into surgery for the first time for the cancer, I was there along with my mother and my aunt, who had led him to Christ. He told my mother and my aunt he loved them. As he was wheeled away, the silence that followed him in the space that would have been mine was palpable. He had the opportunity to say words of love. He chose not to as far as I could tell.
But…
I began to understand him and this fathering thing a bit about 20 years ago.
As these things go, I began to understand him years ago in ways I never did when he was alive.
Why?
Jesus. I know. I know. It sounds simple at best, to some dumb at worst, but I’ve found the best solutions to life lived hard is usually the simplest, and to the unbelieving, we who cling to faith are numbskulls anyway.
Jesus. Just Jesus.
So, here’s what I have learned. Never go without telling your kids, your grand kids, they are loved. Hold them. Treasure them. Tell them what our heart tells you.
It sounds so simple, but it’s so profound. Love them. Tell them. In fact, if the church would do this, oh, what changes there would be. Love. Tell about it.
I learned this when my heart was strangely warmed on August 6, 1995.
Later in the dead of winter that year, I visited my father’s grave and my youngest child and I put some flowers on it. On a gray, windy afternoon, with leaves dancing like Saintsensations, I told him I loved him, and I realized I never told him that when he was alive that I could recall. I told him I have tried to understand what made him tick, in ways I never did before I found a Father who loves me for whom I am.
And I forgave him, and I told him I would see him again someday.
Like roses falling on a silent night, things change when you forgive. You forgive because you’ve learned you’re forgiven. You love because He first loved you.
Simple, but true. Jesus loves me, this I know, for (oh, you know the rest).
Happy Father’s Day you guys. Truth is, I love you. There. Told you.
Billy Turner is a pastor of the United Methodist denomination and a retired journalist.