WALK A MILE IN MY SHOES…

When my father passed eight years ago, it was undoubtedly the worst day of my life! I had always been told that you have regrets when a loved one dies, regrets about what you should have done but did not do or should have said but did not say. I found it amazing that I did not find this to be all that true. If anything, I only have one regret; one regret which I simply could not understand why it did not manifest itself while my father was alive... a regret which did not surface until a short while after he passed. After he died, it was like someone simply pulled the curtains up over my eyes. I found myself wondering if perhaps a few months of maturity on my part after his death was what it took or if it was simply the devastating impact of his death on my life that opened my eyes. Whatever the case, the message was there, literally penned out for me.

As a single mother, working all the time to make ends meet, my father had been very dissatisfied with my parenting skills. He always felt I should have spent more time with my son. In retrospect, he was right, of course, but I simply was doing the best I could to try to ensure that my son had all the things he should. But it just did not seem that I could ever please my father as a mother. It did not matter that every night I was home with my son, after working a full work day that required that I leave the house around 6:30 in the morning to get to my Knoxville job and then home by about 6:00 p.m. by the time I had picked my son up from daycare. Nor did it matter that I morally was a good mother. My father had always worked while my mother stayed at home and raised us children so basically he had never walked in my shoes. He had never known what it was like to come home exhausted, after sitting in traffic for an hour, getting home just in time to pick up a child from a daycare or sitter and then head home to throw a meal together for us two to eat, what it was like to try to get homework done and then get baths around 10:30 or 11:00, only to have to repeat the vicious cycle again, this on top of doing laundry, running errands, etc. He never got to experience what it was like to crawl out high atop a roof at 1 a.m. in the morning because I had forgotten my keys to try to open an office window, hoping it was unlocked, because it was a necessity to work overtime to ensure my son had a nice Christmas. He never got to experience being so sick with the flu that he had to crawl to the kitchen to make something for my son to eat even as sick as I was. He simply missed out on all these situations with not being a single parent, with having a spouse to pick up the slack for the family while he worked. He never got to experience the many times I had to put hairspray or other related items back while in a store because I was broke and my son wanted a $1.28 toy. You see, he had missed out on all these experiences simply because he had not walked in my shoes. Sure, he did not make the choices I did to bring on that hard single parent lifestyle, but likewise past that fact, he simply never knew the hardships I faced as a single mother. Of course, I am a big enough person to admit that it was my bad choice for which I had it so rough.

And not to pass me off as the victim, I, likewise, had never walked in his shoes. I never knew what it was like to be disappointed in my child because they did not meet my expectations, make the choices I would have made, or lived their life to that which I deemed acceptable as a good parent. In retrospect and with looking through his eyes, I now realize the stress I must have brought on him.

But it was a few months after my father died, when even after the above clueing in, I ran across something that really hit the message home. You see, my father had worked for TVA, the well-known utility company in our area as a boilermaker, but because he got injured after falling off of something high up, his company decided to send him to college so that he could learn another trade within the company. The college gave him a workbook with questions that he had to fill out. Well, when he died and my mother was going through his things, she ran across that workbook. I do not know if she had actually looked through it as I soon did. I tend to believe she would not have messed with it, but whatever the case, she gave it to me in some things she sent over. But in that workbook included something that changed my life forever for the good, something literally penned out in the fashion that I have always asked God to show me messages (as I have but a very simple mind). I found myself swapping tears and heartbreak for some clear, unbiased understanding, a new perspective from the opposite side of the fence I had been on. As I read it, it truly cut like a knife, mainly. Not only did it hurt me that I was not able to rectify the situation while he was alive, but it really gave me insight into the feelings of his heart in which I am certain he never expected for anyone, but his college professor to read.

But getting back to the workbook, as I scanned the pages, I came to a section titled “Family.” Below that were questions that my father had answered. As I read, it was as if I had just went to the mailbox and opened a letter that my father had sent me while he was alive, say two weeks prior to his death, yet I received after his death. And then, I cried and my heart broke as I read,”I wish my youngest daughter would wake up and realize the value of her son. I wish she would spend more time with him. I wish she would not work all the time and not be so dependent on us and become responsible.” WOW… talk about feeling like a heel! Now, make no mistake, my father had basically said this to me while he was alive in a round about way, but there was just something about seeing it on paper, in his writing, after his death that really shook me up. It was like as I've heard some say…a message from the afterlife, the other side.

I could never be sure the “why” of that situation playing out as it did, but what I do know and believe is that that workbook did not simply fall into my hands accidentally, mainly because I do not believe in words like “accident.” And, in case you are wondering, yes, I still have the workbook tucked away in my closet, and there is not a time goes by that when I see it, I do not recall the sincere yet hurtful but helpful words my father penned. Perhaps I simply keep it as a reminder, but for whatever reason, I am simply not ready to discard it. Perhaps one day….

But with those hurtful words, it was like someone then put my feet in my father's shoes. All of a sudden, what he felt became so real and that which his perspective had been was as obvious as the writing on the wall. But how come I could not see it before he died and told him I understand “his side,” I wondered. “Why this and why now when it's too late to do anything about it,” I wondered to myself.

I walked away from the workbook realizing how simple it then all looked. My father had never been a single parent nor experienced the hardships that come with that situation and I had never been a father and experienced his feelings on the situation from his side of the fence. He had stood firmly on his side of the fence and I had stood firmly on mine, both too stubborn to walk across the fence to the other's side to see what it looked from the opposite side of the fence.

As I typed this part of this article today, I thought about a great example of this in how my almost-sister-in-law cursed God last year after finding her and my brother-in-law's mutual first child, their 5-week-old newborn, dead in the bed with her. I remember my wonderful Christian mother-in-law telling me how my sister-in-law had not only cursed God with profanity but as well told the preacher before the funeral that she did not want to hear (insert profanity words here) him go on about how there is a God, how good God is, all that. Well, I sat initially short of in shock as my mother-in-law told me this. I was very surprised to learn my mother-in-law, who had such a strong faith and belief in God sat by my sister-in-law's side as she ran down God during this time. You see, this was easy for me to do, be appalled by my near sister-in-law's behavior. It was easy for me because I was on the opposite side of her fence, judging from afar, not actually walking in her shoes or experiencing what she was experiencing…the pain, the heartbreak of just losing a child. When I asked my mother-in-law how she could sit through my near sister-in-law cursing God and such, she told me she simply sat and listened and allowed her to vent as there was no good thing at that particular moment that could be said. It was as if my mother-in-law had moved from the opposite side to the fence and allowed herself to be put in the shoes of my near sister-in-law and thereby took on the feelings and emotions that stemmed from her situation. I personally like to think I would not have cursed God had I have been in that horrible situation, but can I really say that for sure? Without having just lost a child, can we say that we really would not turn on God? I like to think I would not have, but then again do not we all in our self-righteousness? It's always easier to say we would or would not have said or done something until our feet are sole to sole with the shoes. There is wherein the truth comes out! All the difference that exists between the divide of knowing by fruits versus judging someone is the very same measure that lies between the divide of judging without having walked in someone's shoes versus judging having walked in their shoes!

You can have read books by the millions about Australia and know every fine detail about the country, but until you have walked on the soil yourself, do you REALLY know what it is like? That is why it was so easy for my father to judge me and me judge him…He had never walked in my shoes and I had never walked in his and we both were simply too stubborn to see past our own shoes and over the fence that would have allowed us to get a glimpse into each other's world. We formed our judgmental opinions about each other and each other's situation without having actually ever donned the other one's shoes. And the biggest mistake we both made is that we judged on the other's actions, not the other's heart's motive! That's why now I do my best to avoid judging altogether…To me, it's like trying on a new pair of shoes. They may fit well and look nice on your feet and not show evidence initially, with trying them on, of being too tight or rubbing blisters or simply uncomfortable, but to truly be able to size them up, you have to walk in them!