Over time, change occurs. Not so much out of wishing for change or wanting for something else, but life and living get in the way. Changes occur when we have an opportunity to do the same old thing, but we change how we do it. Change occurs when we take a different route down a familiar path. Change occurs when we see something, or someone, we’ve always seen – and see them in a different light or from a different angle.
I want to talk about one such person, and a changed viewpoint. I do it today, not because my viewpoint changed this morning, but to mark day as a special occasion - to recognize it, describe it and praise it - to myself, to my mirror, to my world to tell you that my viewpoint has changed. What I see is different by far from what I once saw.
Let me say a few (more is better, right?) words in praise of this truly great communicator - on his birthday.
Marshall McLuhan?
No.
Robin Williams?
Not him either.
My dad.
Hubert Kolke celebrates 89 today.
McLuhan was a communications guru born 100 years ago - medium is the message etc.; Robin, like me, can always make some sharp point rooted in sarcasm or stupidity with a sharp quick-on-the-draw tongue to make you laugh - but we have to speak or write to do it.
For my dad on the other hand - communicates best by doing something he has done all his life, using a quality I struggle to learn.
He keeps his mouth shut. He doesn’t speak up loud or often. Never shows his teeth in pictures, but smiles easily to just about everyone. He keeps his biggest laughter on the inside. He also stores, and hides, his disdain for those who have wronged him or disappointed him. Most often, they never know.
I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like him, lots.
Pity, that more of those qualities didn’t rub off on me.
He is rock, anchor, mentor and friend – all of those to me.
It has always been fact, this way, since its beginning though I’ve spent most of my life not seeing it so clearly. When I was young, I wanted him to be different, but he wasn’t. Now, I want him just the way he is, the way he has been - the way he continues to be.
He is in that final leg of life’s race, called the frail-elderly state, His body, a bag of wearing out and busted parts held together with stitches, screws, many daily chemicals, patches, inhalers, a pacemaker, a wheelchair, a walker, and oxygen-carrying umbilical cord and laxatives; and what often seems like an endless stream of trips and appointments for poking, prodding, drawing blood and testing by doctors, nurses and technicians.
He is true grit. Two weeks ago, when told it would be a 1 yr. wait for the cornea transplant he needs to restore vision in his left eye, he said “sign me up”, after having that very same week pledged to donate his body to the University for use in medical education.
From the neck up, he is intact and alert – sound mind, incredibly aware – in contrast to so many folks his age who are gone. Gone away, gone in the mind or dead.
He is quiet man. Gentle man. Kind man too. He is, as he has always been, his character and sense of himself intact.
We are all in pursuit of something – a deal, paycheck, promotion, accomplishment, credit, validation, sense of purpose, sense of accomplishment, recognition and appreciation. We all need and want different things. We win some, lose some – and our needs change as careers and age advance us down the career path.
In our personal relationship, and in our families, we are in pursuit of many of these same things. We sometimes get what we earn, or what we deserve, from what we did or by getting the results of that which we failed to do.
The mysterious ingredient in all of these dynamics is that we cannot control or predict the behaviour of others. We have only the capacity to have some handle (we hope) on our own. The actions of others, their living up to, or not, our exacting specifications (often much harsher than we view ourselves) of who we want them to be. This is a strange piece of fiction of idealizing who someone ought to be rather than who they really are.
Fiction, it seems, is supposed to make sense. Families rarely do.
We don’t follow a rule book of etiquette or procedure manual, there is no policy book or framework for decisions. We have actions, reactions and – eventually – analysis. We get to look back on what was to see the life, the long body of work at a time when the looking ahead, and looking forward, part is getting shorter.
Most of the time we are a little bit surprised, a little bit disappointed. Conversely, we are sometimes enormously surprised, thrilled and elated when someone turns out to be more than we expected, deeper and more complex than we ever imagined, and far better and/or kinder in terms of how they treat us than our behaviour ever warranted.
Case in point, for me, is the man who is my father. At the age of 29 he became a father. In many ways throughout my growing-up years he was less than I imagined, different than what I wanted and failed to meet my expectations in a number of ways. Some were just childhood wants and needs that weren’t met, adolescent dreams unfulfilled and borne of the kind of envy kids have for someone else’s family, someone else’s situation, someone else’s relationship with their dad. I remember times that I wished I’d been born into a different family, had different parents; some of that was an inner child craving things that were not there, while some of it was childish rationalizations and frustrations with my own reality and learning much needed coping skills in order to deal with life’s challenges and the reality of disappointments we face when we grow up.
Well, there is a lot of distance between those little-boy days till now; I see nearly 60 years of fatherhood in him. I’ve been a father too, for 33 years now. If I measure myself – my sense of who I am and how I’ve done my job as a father, or as a son, I am proud of many things but still so very much in awe of this man who made me. He worked, sacrificed, gave, did, helped, advised and nurtured me along the way by his actions, his example and by his acceptance of me notwithstanding so many actions of mine that were deserving of rebuke, discipline or challenge.
He is an example of manhood, of fatherhood, of friendship and kindness that stands proud above so many in the crowd. He is my man. He is my dad. He is my mirror. He is my mould. He is my blood. He is my fan. He is my best friend.
When I look at my dad, I see a mirror reflection – of who he is. And of who I want to be.
I am very content with what I see. I don’t want to change it. I see things – many – which could have been different, but those are only in my mind.
The reality I look at, the smiling man in his chair, this kind gentle man – is the same guy I’ve seen all my life– without much change at all.
He is my dad, and he loves me.
I love him.
‘nuff said.
Happy birthday!
Mark Kolke
310,868
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TRUE BEGINNING OF OUR END
I don’t buy it. Your story didn’t scan for me. Do you really think Loretta is so out of touch with her emotions that she would summon Demetri to her death bed just to recite cryptic Shakespeare to him? Why didn’t she get in touch after Dennis died if Cupid was so blind? Didn’t you have the guts to give Demetri what he’d been waiting for all those years – Loretta’s admission that he was truly the love of her life and she was wrong not to have tried again? Did she ever stop drinking? Is that what killed her? Took its time, didn’t it? Demetri was a fool and probably hurt Helena again and again with his narcissism. Loretta wasn’t all that great – Demetri was Pygmalion, falling in love with his own idealized creation of a woman. And Loretta would never settle for a passionless marriage – she’d rather be alone, CM, Calgary, AB
