Watching Dad Feed the Horses

I’m giving this one over to Father’s Day. Most likely, you’ve been doing some reflecting on your dad today, too.

As my husband Rob — father of our three kids and also sometimes called “Father” by members of his flock — drives back home after marrying a couple yesterday in the Adirondacks, I’m thinking about all that he does to support this family. I’m also considering the slim sliver of time, over 30 years ago, that he had to get to know my own father. They shared a number of characteristics, though: inclined towards acts of service, proficient with tractors, not drawing attention to themselves, letting others be the entertainers.

While Dad was ebullient on our wedding day, so happy to be hosting this event at the home he loved, soon afterwards he fell into a debilitating illness that ultimately claimed him just after our first child was born. During the brief time that Rob knew him, he just wasn’t the same person I had known through most of my younger years. Ever since, I have tried to convey who the “prime time” Dad was, mostly so our kids can try to imagine something of how it all used to be.

I say “us,” but as this photo demonstrates, I was nowhere to be seen for a long while. My brothers got to know one of Dad’s salient qualities — his love of horses — well before I came along.

Later, though, I did get my own special times with him.

Here’s one distinct memory, from the full-length manuscript I’ve been working on over the past few years. I’ll let it stand alone.

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It was winter, the sky was sparkling blue; Dad was dressed up in his suit, overcoat, and hat and on his way to the shed. It was too low a building, melting into its surroundings, to be called a “barn”. When I heard him get ready to go, from my bedroom down the hall from my parents’ room, I decided to follow his feet crunching on the driveway stones for the short trip out to see the horse and pony who had been in their stalls all the cold night. Noticing that he had left his briefcase in the freezer room, on the way out the door, I knew that soon he’d be gone for another long day of law work in the city.  Maybe, this way, I could get a few moments alone with him, feel the glow of being his only daughter.      

Watching from the wide doorway to the shed, I saw him dig into the metal container holding the grain. He scooped out the rich brown concoction of oats and sticky molasses, never too much, sliding the wooden door that opened first into Baby’s stall, then Red’s –each time bringing an eagerly nodding head and appreciative nickers from the other side. The grain fell into a built-in wooden tray that Dad had constructed alongside the larger slatted bins for hay. “Hey, Red boy,” he said softly, reaching through to give the pony’s neck a pat. Sometimes, when Red found a break in a fence and got out to graze on the lawn, Dad called him “that rascal,” but he loved him deeply, as he’d loved all of the horses he’d ever had, stretching back to when he’d been a boy.

I heard the sounds of both animals chomping, then using their thick tongues to get every last bit of the precious stuff. I felt no immediate need to reveal myself, preferring just to observe my dad doing his usual morning task of devotion. Inside the house, he rarely served meals to us — Mom did all of that — but he always showed tenderness in the way he spoke to us, listened to our tales and our music, and responded to an array of needs. With no fanfare, with five kids in a 14-year span of ages, he enabled each one of us to go to college, and a few of us to graduate school, too. He was the Quiet Provider and also Believer In Us Without Judgment.  Whatever path we might see for ourselves, he would stand by to help.

I watched him shake out a few sections of baled hay, reaching in again to make a delivery in each stall, brushing off remnants from his clothes. Finally, spotting me nearby in my robe, he startled at first, then said, “Mornin’ Pol. A little chilly out here! You warm enough?” He came right over and leaned down to give me a hug, and I smelled the distinctive, slightly musty scent that always accompanied him.

As we walked back to the house together, my rubber boots slipping on the ice, he found out a little about the third grade day I had ahead of me.  “Do you think you could let the horses out after you have your breakfast?” he asked. He’d picked up his briefcase, put on his hat, and gave me a peck on the cheek.  I wouldn’t see him again until around 8 p.m., when the boys and I would be back in our own rooms, doing homework. But I was proud that he’d trusted me with this important task, glad for the prospect of going back out there to watch Baby and Red step gingerly out of their stalls.

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Do you have a particular memory of watching your dad do some chore, or working with him to get something done? Or maybe a game you would regularly play together, just the two of you? If so, please share, in a comment. I hope you’ll enjoy bringing it back.