Silent Sacrifices
Patrick C. Hendricks
What defines a good person? I mean truly good. Certainly there are good and great people all around us, we help each other every day. Be it the shoulder to cry on, the family member there to jump your car in need, or just the quality companionship of sharing a joke with a friend. These are all good qualities and make good people, but I can’t help but feel like there’s another level. The kind of level where you’re not even sure how much a person has actually helped you and been there for you. How much they’ve actually sacrificed for you, in quiet, with no expectation of gratitude or even the tiniest bit of recognition. It’s these silent sacrifices that define the true power of being good.
'Cause that’s what parenthood is all about, right? Maybe, I don’t know, I have no children of my own, nor have I really had the opportunity to make meaningful sacrifice for those around me. But when faced with a loss such as this, the picture of who my father was seems to become all the more clear.
It’s a running (although truthful) joke in my family that during the brief tenure where it was just a father and just entering puberty teenage son living together, the daily dinner was chicken nuggets at the local Burger King. It was easy. It was fast. We were two dudes. A brief introduction into what my future college days would have in store. So when
Diana entered the picture and began making actual meals for both of us, it started becoming a joke (that I unfortunately don’t think I’ll ever live down).
The thing is, that image has become so pervasive that it has replaced a few quiet memories, memories
that maybe even my father forgot. The silent sacrifices that, at the time, I didn’t even know or recognize.
Now they’re clear as day. The evenings when he would spend an hour actually making me a meal, maybe not something so complicated, but a meal nonetheless. A varied course of maybe whatever meat he could get, some mashed potatoes, corn, green beans. Nothing spectacular, nothing much better than what the most self-sufficient bachelor could cook up.
Still, there he was spending time in the kitchen, his son is doing his homework or
playing games on his computer. He’d call out my name, give me a full plate of food,
and I’d go back to whatever task a teenage boy was doing at that time. So focused on my own daily life, not realizing that while I had a full plate of food, my dad was ten feet away boiling up a bowl of
ramen noodles for the fourth straight night.
Then there were the sports. Oh boy, those I do remember. My dad, like most red-blooded
men, loved sports. From soccer, basketball, tennis, and more prominently baseball and football,
I played them all. Every day without fail, he was there. Every practice, every game, like clockwork.
Many times other family members were there, but you could almost bet money that if I had a game,
my father was there.
Maybe those sacrifices weren’t so silent. They were there nonetheless. But then
I remember my junior year of high school. The top French horn, I had a solo piece that year during our marching competition. It was our biggest year during my tenure, and boy we were good. My father,
unlike with sports, never really quite took to the whole band scene as much, at least as far as
passionate support came to it. In retrospect this is kind of funny, as his first wife would spend
much of her life as a school district band director, and his second wife so absorbed into the world of
music she’s actually publishing a biography book about a well-known musician. Don’t get me wrong,
the man loved music, but boy did he scratch his head at our marching competitions sometimes.
But back to it. So here I am, my top performing year musically, feeling like I’m at the top of the
world. We have our biggest competition of the year coming up, and he tells me the week before that
he won’t be able to make it, he just can’t get away from work. That’s understandable, life doesn’t always
throw you the bone you want. It sucked, but what can you do about it.
The competition comes around the corner, and there I am, marching to the front of the field with
my solo coming up. Right before the notes start coming, I do a brief scan of the crowd. There’s the
son of a bitch, sitting away from all the other band parents, just watching. I don’t even think
I told him where the competition was. Hell, even that morning he confirmed that he couldn’t come.
Yet there he was. Seeing him there, suddenly the music wasn’t so hard to play.
These memories, and so many more, come rushing through your head in times like these. They’re
both a curse and a solace. With them comes an undeniable sense of power. I can’t be the only one in
here that works or has worked in the service industry to some capacity. You deal with pissed off
customers on the daily, and sometimes you feel like you’re having just the crappiest twenty-four
hours imaginable. You’re waiting tables, no one is tipping, you failed an exam, and (let’s be honest)
you’re probably hung over. Then you have that one customer, sitting by themselves, just having lunch.
They’re nice, cordial, and talk to you with a smile on their face. Suddenly, the day doesn’t feel so
bad, the headache starts to pass, and you just feel good. The smile of a single stranger can change
the course of a day. So how much power comes from the love of a father?
Just over a year ago I moved back home with Dad and Diana. I was trying out the whole
millennial schtick. We’re supposed to move back in with our parents, right? By the way, if
any of you call us lazy, just remember it was you who raised us. Sorry, sorry, getting off track.
I had hit a rough patch in my life, nothing insurmountable, but I needed to catch my breath.
Immediately my father told me that I could come home, of course I could come home. For the first
time in a while this weight was lifted off my shoulders, I felt like I could breathe. There was
my father again. My hero, my rock, a lighthouse on the shore. No matter the storm or rocky waters,
I would be able to find my way back home.
I had been back only a few days, we were going out to grab pizza for dinner. Diana suggested that
I go with my father to pick it up. I distinctly remember her saying “It would be good for both of you.”
Feels a lot like divine premonition when I think about that moment now. We’re driving and
I decide that this just might be a good time to let him know how much I appreciate him.
I’m trying to think of all these words I want to say, because sometimes thank you never seems
like enough. I pour it out. The whole rock metaphor, the awkward word-vomit of emotional thoughts.
Everything I wanted him to know about how I felt about him, but most of all I wanted him
to know that without a shadow of a doubt he was my greatest hero.
I always believed that my father hearing that his children thought he was their hero would be the greatest possible compliment he could ever receive. He always prided himself in the thought that he would be a better father than his own, something that every father should strive to do.
I’m telling him he’s my hero, I’m telling him everything I believe he wants to hear.
There’s a brief silence. Then he turns to me.
“I never wanted to be your hero.”
Confused? I certainly was, for a couple seconds at least.
Even a brief moment of doubt thinking I’d upset him in some way.
“All I want is for you to be your own hero.”
Those aren’t the final words I got from my father, but they will be the
ones I remember most. The man felt a great satisfaction hearing that he was my
hero, I don’t doubt that for a second. The man didn’t show it, but I know him too well.
He decided to give that up to teach me one more lesson. One more sacrifice in a lifetime
of sacrifices, to make sure he gave me as much strength as he could.
So that’s where I’ll leave you. A simple request that you take out the effort to
make those silent sacrifices. To do something for someone even if they don’t even
know you did. Because when the time comes, they’ll know. And they’ll never forget.
Thank you, Dad.
'Cause that’s what parenthood is all about, right? Maybe, I don’t know, I have no children of my own, nor have I really had the opportunity to make meaningful sacrifice for those around me. But when faced with a loss such as this, the picture of who my father was seems to become all the more clear.
It’s a running (although truthful) joke in my family that during the brief tenure where it was just a father and just entering puberty teenage son living together, the daily dinner was chicken nuggets at the local Burger King. It was easy. It was fast. We were two dudes. A brief introduction into what my future college days would have in store. So when
Diana entered the picture and began making actual meals for both of us, it started becoming a joke (that I unfortunately don’t think I’ll ever live down).
The thing is, that image has become so pervasive that it has replaced a few quiet memories, memories
that maybe even my father forgot. The silent sacrifices that, at the time, I didn’t even know or recognize.
Now they’re clear as day. The evenings when he would spend an hour actually making me a meal, maybe not something so complicated, but a meal nonetheless. A varied course of maybe whatever meat he could get, some mashed potatoes, corn, green beans. Nothing spectacular, nothing much better than what the most self-sufficient bachelor could cook up.
Still, there he was spending time in the kitchen, his son is doing his homework or
playing games on his computer. He’d call out my name, give me a full plate of food,
and I’d go back to whatever task a teenage boy was doing at that time. So focused on my own daily life, not realizing that while I had a full plate of food, my dad was ten feet away boiling up a bowl of
ramen noodles for the fourth straight night.
Then there were the sports. Oh boy, those I do remember. My dad, like most red-blooded
men, loved sports. From soccer, basketball, tennis, and more prominently baseball and football,
I played them all. Every day without fail, he was there. Every practice, every game, like clockwork.
Many times other family members were there, but you could almost bet money that if I had a game,
my father was there.
Maybe those sacrifices weren’t so silent. They were there nonetheless. But then
I remember my junior year of high school. The top French horn, I had a solo piece that year during our marching competition. It was our biggest year during my tenure, and boy we were good. My father,
unlike with sports, never really quite took to the whole band scene as much, at least as far as
passionate support came to it. In retrospect this is kind of funny, as his first wife would spend
much of her life as a school district band director, and his second wife so absorbed into the world of
music she’s actually publishing a biography book about a well-known musician. Don’t get me wrong,
the man loved music, but boy did he scratch his head at our marching competitions sometimes.
But back to it. So here I am, my top performing year musically, feeling like I’m at the top of the
world. We have our biggest competition of the year coming up, and he tells me the week before that
he won’t be able to make it, he just can’t get away from work. That’s understandable, life doesn’t always
throw you the bone you want. It sucked, but what can you do about it.
The competition comes around the corner, and there I am, marching to the front of the field with
my solo coming up. Right before the notes start coming, I do a brief scan of the crowd. There’s the
son of a bitch, sitting away from all the other band parents, just watching. I don’t even think
I told him where the competition was. Hell, even that morning he confirmed that he couldn’t come.
Yet there he was. Seeing him there, suddenly the music wasn’t so hard to play.
These memories, and so many more, come rushing through your head in times like these. They’re
both a curse and a solace. With them comes an undeniable sense of power. I can’t be the only one in
here that works or has worked in the service industry to some capacity. You deal with pissed off
customers on the daily, and sometimes you feel like you’re having just the crappiest twenty-four
hours imaginable. You’re waiting tables, no one is tipping, you failed an exam, and (let’s be honest)
you’re probably hung over. Then you have that one customer, sitting by themselves, just having lunch.
They’re nice, cordial, and talk to you with a smile on their face. Suddenly, the day doesn’t feel so
bad, the headache starts to pass, and you just feel good. The smile of a single stranger can change
the course of a day. So how much power comes from the love of a father?
Just over a year ago I moved back home with Dad and Diana. I was trying out the whole
millennial schtick. We’re supposed to move back in with our parents, right? By the way, if
any of you call us lazy, just remember it was you who raised us. Sorry, sorry, getting off track.
I had hit a rough patch in my life, nothing insurmountable, but I needed to catch my breath.
Immediately my father told me that I could come home, of course I could come home. For the first
time in a while this weight was lifted off my shoulders, I felt like I could breathe. There was
my father again. My hero, my rock, a lighthouse on the shore. No matter the storm or rocky waters,
I would be able to find my way back home.
I had been back only a few days, we were going out to grab pizza for dinner. Diana suggested that
I go with my father to pick it up. I distinctly remember her saying “It would be good for both of you.”
Feels a lot like divine premonition when I think about that moment now. We’re driving and
I decide that this just might be a good time to let him know how much I appreciate him.
I’m trying to think of all these words I want to say, because sometimes thank you never seems
like enough. I pour it out. The whole rock metaphor, the awkward word-vomit of emotional thoughts.
Everything I wanted him to know about how I felt about him, but most of all I wanted him
to know that without a shadow of a doubt he was my greatest hero.
I always believed that my father hearing that his children thought he was their hero would be the greatest possible compliment he could ever receive. He always prided himself in the thought that he would be a better father than his own, something that every father should strive to do.
I’m telling him he’s my hero, I’m telling him everything I believe he wants to hear.
There’s a brief silence. Then he turns to me.
“I never wanted to be your hero.”
Confused? I certainly was, for a couple seconds at least.
Even a brief moment of doubt thinking I’d upset him in some way.
“All I want is for you to be your own hero.”
Those aren’t the final words I got from my father, but they will be the
ones I remember most. The man felt a great satisfaction hearing that he was my
hero, I don’t doubt that for a second. The man didn’t show it, but I know him too well.
He decided to give that up to teach me one more lesson. One more sacrifice in a lifetime
of sacrifices, to make sure he gave me as much strength as he could.
So that’s where I’ll leave you. A simple request that you take out the effort to
make those silent sacrifices. To do something for someone even if they don’t even
know you did. Because when the time comes, they’ll know. And they’ll never forget.
Thank you, Dad.