Lessons from My Dad

Father’s Day was Sunday, June 21. I have never written about my father before. Now seems the right time to do so.

                My father was “Daddy” to me. He called me “his pretty little girl.” I was the oldest. He five other “pretty little girls” until he had his longed for son. My brother became the apple of Daddy’s eye. When we were old enough to go to the corner of our street, we’d wait there for Daddy to come home so he would let one of us sit on his lap and “drive” the rest of the way. He played baseball with us in the lot next to our house. He was always the pitcher—for both teams. The teams consisted of a mixture of the Ryan kids and the kids in the neighborhood.

                One visiting Sunday after I’d been in the convent a couple of months, he held me and listened as I cried telling him how homesick I was. Although I know his heart was aching, he did not rush to tell me to come home. He must have understood that that was part of the process of leaving home and growing up.

                My Dad wasn’t perfect. He had his faults. But, I never doubted that he loved my Mother and “his kids.” He had an accident about a year after I’d entered the convent and that removed him living in the family. From then on, he was the Daddy we cared for.

                Although my memories of him are few or faded, he will always be the one who first showed me how to love. My recognition of his weaknesses, late in my life, helped me recognize my own weaknesses. I learned to be more accepting of the humanness of others.

                My Dad has been dead for 40 years but his father-love is still there. I think he would tell me he is proud of that I am one of “Ryan’s daughters.” 

     Sr. Kathleen Ryan, OSB