Say it now. You may not have the chance to say it tomorrow.

This is the second Father’s Day I’ll spend without mine. He passed away in March 2010. He would have been 79 last month.

We had an interesting, and sometimes tumultuous relationship. He was an absentee dad because he had to be. That’s where his jobs were. Long-haul trucker, construction worker, shift worker at factories, military service. You get the picture.

But when he was home, I have fond memories of hours at Fultz’s pay lake in Carter County where we’d fish for bluegill and mud cats.

Or the special Christmas gifts that my sister and I would make like cutting little ovals into a carton of cigarettes to insert our latest class photos. Low budget production.

But we were never really close. And now we’ll never have the chance to be.

He grew up in Carter County, as did my mother. He dropped out of school at 16 and lied about his age to get into the Army. He was a decorated veteran of the Korean War and was stationed in Alabama in 1953 when I was born. When he was discharged, he came back to Carter County and held a series of jobs before we moved to Ohio when I was four.

There, we lived in what is euphemistically referred to now as federally subsidized housing. We called them the projects. That’s when the call of the road came and he started trucking. So between truck driving and some factory work my mother took on, we made it through three years in Warren, Ohio.

Then, back to Carter County and the little community of Globe. More trucking, but then he landed a construction job in Winchester. Sometimes he would come home on weekends; sometimes we would visit him staying with my aunt and uncle in the Clark County version of the projects at Stephenson Heights. But income was more predictable.

We moved to Winchester when I was in fourth grade and moved out of the projects and into our own modest little house the next year. I graduated from high school in that house.

When he secured a good paying and steady job at Rockwell, we were set. No more worries about absentee fatherhood, which put us in the house together to argue, fuss, fight and fume. All fathers and sons have their issues. We had enough for two families on occasion.

I’m not writing this as a “woe is me” bit of narrative. I got some lucky breaks in my life that my father never did and I’m thankful for it. And I’m thankful that life’s lessons have made me a better person because of who we were and what we did while I was under his roof.

I loved my father. Problem is, I never told him. And I know he loved me, he just didn’t say it.

Nearly every conversation with my wife, mother or any of our four children ends with “Love you.”

That never happened with my dad. The only time I told him was when I kissed him on the head at Clark Regional Medical Center and said goodbye for the last time after he had passed away.

Say it now. You may not have the chance to say it tomorrow.

William Amon “Doodle” Osborne. I love you.

Life is all about expressions and completing transactions. Every emotion, thought, action or a change creates a new debt or a favor that needs to re-balanced. Obviously we cannot reciprocate the favors in full, but we have been able to do that with a thank you in the most simplistic way or ratcheting up with complications.   

One of the incomplete transactions of my life was not being able to do the things I wanted to do for my father. As a kid I would step in and take over the work from him so he can take rest, an Indian tradition that I cherish.  When I moved to Saudi Arabia on an assignment, I sent my first check to him with which he started paying off my loan. With the next check I asked him to buy clothes for the family and wanted him to replace his old black Jacket he wore forever with a new one. He said no, first things first. In the first week of December 1977 my check paid off all my loans, and with the next check I asked him to oblige me. Man, I am feeling a deluge of emotions as I am writing this, darn, my eyes are welled up.

He did not get the check, he just had to live his words, “Until my last breath, I will be earning my living and take care of my family.” Darn it, he did it.  I was angry for my helplessness, and was happy that the man kept his word. But that created a huge gap in my life and I continue to recover my balance by serving the senior friends in whatever little way I can.  You can always count on me to drop everything off to attend to a senior’s request.

Talking about keeping one’s word; in the late sixties he decided to go back to till his father’s land abandoned some forty years ago, when the whole family died in the influenza that had killed millions around the world. He sold a thriving property we had and sunk the money in the farm and I was on it for six months. He gave his word to someone to sell for quick cash and told us about it in the evening, three of his friends descended at our house with three times the money, my father refused; he said no, I have given my word to that man. My mother and I were angry; he said he would rather lose the money than his word.  I did not value it then, but when I left home, it all meant so much to me and yes, I have lost quite a lot for that, then I realized no one will take the wealth with them either.

My father is my hero and opened the doors of wisdom to us.  Pluralism indeed runs in my family. He taught one of the biggest lessons of my life in social cohesiveness and dealing with extremism that I continue to reflect in my talks, acts and write ups.

During the communal riots in Jabalpur (India) in the early the sixties, both Muslims and Hindus were killed in the mayhem. I wish every father in India, America and elsewhere teaches this lesson to his kids. He was crystal clear on his take; He told us the “individuals” are responsible for the bloodshed and not the religions; he would emphasize that you cannot blame the intangible religion and expect justice, we must blame the individuals who caused it and punish them accordingly for disturbing the peace and thus bring a resolution to the conflict by serving justice. He said you cannot annihilate, kill, hang or beat the religion, then why bark at it?  

My father was a Mayor of the Town of Yelahanka (The town gave birth to Bangalore in 1537) and served the council for many years. He was also the president of the Islamic Association of the town. We grew up with no barriers between us and another soul. He broke all traditions of the society; during the early sixties India was pretty much like the US in the way she treated her “Harijan – God’s chosen people as Mahatma Gandhi termed the “untouchables”. The African Americans endured such treatment here. My father would invite them in our home and my mother would serve tea and food in the same glasses and plates that we drank and ate. Many people opposed him with unsavory words, but my father stood his ground. I see that streak in me playing it out all the times.

He treated all of us kids with dignity and I am pleased I got to be disciplined at least once. I guess I replicated that with my children to the point my kids would actually say, Dad, you should have disciplined us. I did not see the need for it. I am fine and they are fine too.

Read the rest of…
Mike Ghouse: A Tribute to my Pluralist Father

I am my father’s daughter
And proud of  it.

Dad,
You taught me to be humble for most things,
To be proud  of a few things
And to be grateful for all things.

You gave me life. 
You gave me strength.
You gave me roots.
You gave me wings so I could  fly on my own.
And you were always there to catch me when I fell.

You  kissed my tears away and fixed me up when I scraped my knee riding my bike.
And then you fixed the bike, too.
You told me stories and taught me  how to laugh.
You showed me the world through your eyes
And taught me to  believe in magic.

Thank you for all you taught me,
All you gave  me,
All you did for me,
All you fixed for me,
All you showed to  me;
And most of all, for making me who I am
And for loving me through it  all.

Always your baby girl
With more love than you can ever  imagine.