Introspection: Thank You, Dad

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Thank You, Dad

Those who love me, I will deliver;
I will protect those who know my name.
When they call to me, I will answer them;
I will be with them in trouble,
I will rescue them and honor them.

Psalm 91:14-15 (NRSV)

I just wish I could have told him
In the living years

From "The Living Years" by Mike + the Mechanics

My father, Bobby Snyder, died suddenly almost three weeks ago, on the morning of October 27.  His health had not been good, but his death was not expected.

Dad and I had a strained relationship.  It is said that religion and politics are two subjects one should not discuss in polite company.  Dad loved to discuss these very subjects, though I tried to avoid them, and our differences came between us.  My mother tells me that the reason that Dad and I did not get along is that, though we did not see eye to eye on a lot of matters, we were both opinionated and headstrong.  Dad argued his opinions rather aggressively, but I struggled to stand my ground without becoming defensive or angry.

For the last six years or so, Dad and I did not talk with each other as much as we talked previously, but, after I had to take him to the emergency room back in March, I made it a point to check in on him regularly.

I thought about Dad a lot in the days following his death.  As I looked back to some of the better times we shared, a few stories came to mind.

On a Wednesday evening back in 2008,¹ my mother and I joined my grandmother for dinner.  At that time, I was working at a job I hated, and, for some reason, I was feeling especially anxious about it that evening.  I called Dad after dinner, and he picked me up from my grandmother's house and took me for a long drive to calm me down.  At one point, he told me something he had told himself when he was stuck in a job he hated: "I'm doing this for me and a paycheck every week."  Basically, he reminded me that my job wasn't my purpose in life and that I was only doing what I had to do a the time.

In the summer of 2010, after I had moved on to my current job, the car I had been driving since I was a freshman in college was wearing out, so I needed to buy another one.  I had never purchased a car, so I was a bit nervous.²  I asked Dad to go with me to the dealership, and he drove me there.  He did not step in to haggle with the salesperson or anything like that, but he gave me moral support through his presence.

On one Saturday evening in late 2012, Dad and I went to a pub downtown.  That year, I had suffered some mistreatment by someone I once trusted and respected, and I told Dad about it over dinner and some beers.  I don't remember anything he said to me that evening, but his listening to me vent about my problems meant a lot to me.

Dad and I had our differences, but he was there for me when I needed him.

Looking back, I also see that Dad had a lot of influence on the career path I chose.  He gave me my first computer, a Tandy 1000 HX from Radio Shack, as a Christmas gift when I was in the first grade, and he picked out my next two, which were both Christmas gifts from him and my mother.  He also introduced me to StarCraft, a strategy game for which I could design and program my own levels.  I suppose it was inevitable that I would become a computer programmer.

Incidentally, the Sunday after Dad died was All Saints Day, the day on the Christian calendar when we remember the "great cloud of witnesses" who have gone before us.  During my church's All Saints Day service, Christine Matthews, one of my pastors, said that saints are not perfect people but that they point us to God in some way.³  If Dad pointed me to God, it was through his being there for me when I needed him.  God is always with us.  God is there for us when we need God and even when we forget that we need God.

Dad and I didn't always get along, but I know that he loved me and that he was proud of me.  The pastors of my church say that, though we grieve when we lose loved ones, we grieve with hope.  My hope is that someday Dad and I will see each other "on the other side" and that the things that came between us in this life will be no more.  Until then, I simply hope that somehow he knows that I'm grateful.

Notes:

1. Or was it 2009?
2. I had never bought a car because, after my mother bought a new car, she let me drive her old one.
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaK1c7nKxjw

The photograph of my father and me was taken by Becky Smith in the late 1980s.