Happy Father’s Day! I am envisioning that across the diocese, dads are getting cards, gifts, hugs and extra attention from their kids. It’s an important day, one that deserves much celebration because of the vital role dads play in families.
Mine will be receiving a card and a special 30-minute phone call from the prison where I’ve been for 28 Father’s Days. It’s the best I can do, except for this article. Surprise!
Memories of precious times and conversations are tumbling over one another like waves coming onshore, and I’m so grateful for each one that they must be shared.
When Dad was 5 years old, he was given a baseball card from his cousin that launched a lifelong hobby. This card was his most prized possession until he bought my mom’s engagement ring many years later. She’s someone pretty special to knock Gil Hodges of the 1949 Dodgers out of first place, and Dad was pretty smart to choose her!
They’ve been married 56 years, have three kids (Wayne Jr., Kent and me) and five grandkids and live a quiet life in northwest Columbus.
Dad’s first career was in accounting. He graduated from Ohio State University, became a CPA and worked for several large corporations in Columbus over the decades.
When I was a kid, I didn’t know what an accountant did. I only knew it involved paperwork and math. His home office was next to my room, and I used to fall asleep to the rat-a-tat-tat of the 10-key adding machine as he worked into the night. The sound made me feel safe because I knew he was right there.
My brothers and I had idyllic, carefree and fun childhoods due to our dad’s love, faith, provision and devotion to our family. Dad created a sense of security, derived from his upbringing, strong work ethic and his faith.
He worked hard to provide for our family and taught us kids to appreciate and share our blessings. That meant part of our allowance was to be put in the grade school-size “My Sunday Offering” envelope and dropped in the basket at Mass.
He made us feel secure and protected by his consistent presence at home and his bizarre sleeping habits. Unfortunately for me, that meant he knew every time I broke curfew. (Sigh.)
Dad’s second career was as a sports cards and memorabilia dealer. Wayne, Kent and I would sort cards at the dining room table to help him make sets. He’d go to shows and sometimes bring us along. He’d work, we’d play, and everyone came home happy. His love of cards has not diminished (despite the popularity of the hobby declining), and he still goes to shows to wheel and deal.
During our family activities, Dad was always trying to teach us kids. He taught me to record baseball stats at Columbus Clippers games. (I later became the statistician for my high school’s baseball team.) He taught me the rules of football, courtesy of many Browns and Buckeye games. (I’m a pretty good armchair referee now.)
During one rainy camping trip, he taught us how to play poker by using M&Ms as poker chips! Although euchre is now our family game of choice, M&Ms are still my favorite candy.
When I was 4, I was in a swing set accident. Dad took me to the hospital and kept me from hyperventilating so the doctor could stitch up my forehead. When I was 9, he taught me to ride a bike. Half a dozen years later, he taught me to drive a car and change a flat tire! Best of all, when I was 11, he didn’t get upset when he woke up from a nap to find his toenails painted pink! A girl’s gotta practice, you know.
My parents have been active members of Columbus St. Andrew Church since 1969. One of my best memories is from the 1970s and ’80s when it was my turn to “help” count the collection in the rectory basement after Sunday Mass. I collected and sorted the coins, and then put them in paper wrappers.
A plastic slide sorted them; I just poured them down the chute. It was the noisiest, coolest thing I’d ever played – I mean, worked with! Dad and the other collection counters always thanked me when I was done (or, maybe it was because I was done), and it felt good to be appreciated by grown-ups.
Having been a basketball player in his high school and college years, Dad volunteered as a coach for the St. Andrew Vikings basketball team. He later took his volunteer spirit and skills to the St. Aloysius after-school and summer programs. He helped serve lunches, then taught basketball fundamentals to the kids, with an emphasis on fun!
After he hung up the basketball shoes for good, he would spend summers trimming hedges on the St. Andrew property.
He and Mom supported all our extracurricular activities. They came to my ballet recitals, gymnastics classes and grade school productions. They were in the stands at most of our high school track meets and soccer games to cheer on my brothers, and football games to watch me in the flag corps at halftime. Their encouragement kept us going through endless practices and instilled determination in us to see things through.
Dad’s favorite Bible verses are John 1:1 and 5: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” and “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”
When this Gospel was read at Christmas Mass, I remember seeing Dad smile like he was just told the secret of life. Maybe it is his secret of life. Those verses seem to give him superior strength to keep fighting the good fight, never giving up and keeping the faith.
That’s one of the things I admire most about my dad – his strong, steady faith in God. He is one of the most grounded people I know because his faith is unshakable. Even after the greatest tragedy our family ever experienced, he trusted God implicitly and entirely. Here’s my proof:
In the days prior to being sentenced to prison, I was riddled with anxiety and fear. We have an old picture of Jesus the Good Shepherd in our family room. One evening, he took me to the family room, put his arm around me and said, “See that little lamb on Jesus’ shoulders? That’s you now, and He is going to take care of you.”
His simple statement of faith left me in tears. Him, too. I still hold on to that almost three decades later, because with those words, he was telling me that, despite the inevitable and inconceivable struggles waiting for me in prison, I would never be alone. Jesus would be right there, carrying me on his shoulders and eventually bringing me home.
In the meantime, Dad has passed through the prison gates more than 575 times to visit me. The only thing that kept him away was COVID closing the visiting hall for almost two years.
We continue to strengthen our bond by talking over games of euchre and M&Ms. Sometimes we have tough, emotional conversations, but mostly he makes me laugh. He wants to make my situation better, and, for a few precious hours, less prison-y. It is his self-appointed job, and he does it well.
My most sincere and desperate prayer is for us to play cards and laugh at home, around the kitchen table someday, which would be my best Father’s Day gift ever.
Michele Williams is an inmate at the Ohio Reformatory for Women.
