I hope everyone is reminiscing about the good things about their Fathers.
Do we all remember, for those of us that had fathers growing up, your first Atticus moment?
The moment where you discover a talent or moment of past behavior of your father that you didn’t even know he had or was capable of?
An Atticus moment, for those not familiar with the name, is that moment in To Kill a Mockingbird where Atticus picks up the rifle and puts down the rabid dog while Scout watches him in wonderment and awe. After that occurs, Scout suddenly discovers a fact about her Father that she had never known before. This shapes her perception of him for the rest of the story.
It is those moments when we realize our fathers are more than we thought.
Until we encounter our Atticus moment, we thought of our Fathers, well, as Fathers, not real human beings. They were the ones who told us what not to do, and often imbued upon us tiresome (at that time) nonsensical parables and metaphors.
If we were lucky, we had more than one Atticus moment with our Fathers.
I had a few Atticus moments with my Father. Yet, the one Atticus moment that made an impression on me was when I learned that he had driven his truck through the race riots that occurred in our city at the time. As an avid reader of heroic fiction at the time this floored me. And, he delivered this information to me in such a nonchalant manner you would have thought it was nothing. Just a ride down the street.
It was then that I realized my Father was more than I realized.
When I brought up this theory to my wife-to-be she commented that her Atticus moment with her adopted Father was the moment she discovered that he was a Golden-gloves boxer. She also felt that that was the moment when her Father relegated himself to reality.
I hope you all had your Atticus moments with your Fathers. And, in reality, those Atticus moments are the ones where, in reality, we appreciate and admire our Fathers more than we ever had before.
Happy Father’s day and sanguinely for those that still have their Fathers present in life, enjoy your day.
