"Unseen Hands"

UNSEEN HANDS


I grew up in a small Ohio town, where everyone helped their fellow neighbor and you weren’t afraid to leave your doors unlocked late at night.
There were five total in our family, my older brother, sister, mom, dad and myself. We seemed to be the perfect family.
We attended a small local Methodist Church in town, and gathered on the wooden red padded pews every Sunday Morning.
I always remember my dad working when I was younger and the times we shared were few and far between. When I would see the neighborhood boys out at the park or in their back yards with their father’s, I thought of what it would be like if they were my dad and I. I couldn’t understand why he put work first and couldn’t take a moment out of his busy day to play catch.
It wasn’t long before bitterness set in and walls began to build. I started to find other ways to fill the gap that was growing wider and wider each day from lack of closeness with my father.
When I was ten, I got a paper route which came in handy for some spending money and to help with school supplies. I would arrive home from school each day, have a snack, and then head out to peddle the daily news. Over time I would return home from my paper route, have dinner, and retire to my room for the evening. I might have seen my dad for a few hours through out the day, but words were limited.
In January of nineteen eighty- eighty, my father lost his job and that’s when times became hard for our family both financially and emotionally.
My dad had lost his feeling of being the “man of the house” and “the soul provider.” We had to look to the government for assistance. He then made looking for employment a full time job.
When I would get out of bed in the morning to get ready for school, I would often smell freshly ground coffee perking in the coffee pot and I knew my dad was heading out early to inquire of a job.
I remember how my dad’s hands were often calloused and stained with dirt from doing odd and end jobs just to bring a small amount of money into the household to put food on the table and to keep the bills from piling up on the counter.
Soon my parents began to let the hard times affect their relationship which would lead to heated discussions to where days went by without words being spoken to each other.
At age seventeen I meet the love of my life. We would spend evenings at a local reservoir watching, and often, being attacked by the mean tempered geese. Our relationship grew intensely over a short period of time to where daily we spent every moment together.
One August evening my girlfriend called and said she would soon pick me up for dinner out. I freshened up, splashed on some cologne, and waited for her arrival.
My father was working on the family car when my girlfriend arrived in her red Chevette. I opened the passengers’ door to a warm smile and a face aglow. I climbed into the tan-covered seat and smelt the pleasant scent of her perfume. I buckled my seat belt and noticed my father approaching the vehicle. He tapped on the glass and I lowered the window.
“Heading out,” he asked.
“Hello Mr. Moore.” A soft voice came beside me.
“Yes, we’re heading out,” I sharply replied.
My dad then looked at me with years of fathering love in his eyes and asked, “Maybe we can get together this weekend and do some fishing.”
Years of bitterness began to eat away at my lonely heart and they couldn’t keep silent any longer. I looked into his blue eyes and said the words that made the gap grow into a canyon, “You had seventeen years to spend time with me, and not once had you ever asked me to go fishing and now it’s to late!”
I remember the look on his face as we drove away that evening. He looked like he had lost a son in which he never had, and in some ways he was right. Over the next few weeks our words almost became extinct.
My mother told me how my father was deeply hurt over what I had said, and that I should give him a chance to make things right. Like mothers words always do, I took them to heart.
That September I asked my dad if he would like to cast a line out at a local pond near our house. The look in his eyes answered the question without him speaking a word.
We had a wonderful time together that warm September evening, and I could start to fill the canyon began to close. I fell in the pond that day and his calloused hands reached in and lifted me out of the troubled waters.
Since then my faith in God has grown stronger and I now know of His peace and love that He can bring to a wounded heart.
I now look back over the years that my dad and I weren’t close and saw the times when those dirty calloused hands corrected me when I was out of line. They held me firmly when I needed comforted. They would gently guide me when I would get off the beaten path. And they patted me on the back for a job well done. Those calloused hands worked every day to put food on the table and to make sure I had clothes on my back. I never saw them that way through the years, only my bitterness and pride.
I always thought I was the one who attempted to close the canyon between us that grew over the years but I soon realized it was my dad who had enough of the silence and wanted to build a bridge over time.
That September evening changed my life between my father and me, because the Lord let me see my dad’s unseen hands.