August 10, 2023
Today’s post is what I would call “off topic”—but I have a lot on my mind. Thirty years ago today, on Tuesday, August 10, 1993, I said goodbye to Robert Milo Wallin—my dad.
Dad died at 70, when I was just 38
years old, and not ready to lose him.
Being raised by a former army boot
camp officer wasn’t always easy. I took
a lot of heat as the oldest child of parents who didn’t have children until
their thirties (and didn’t have the best father and mother role models growing
up)... The pressure to excel in school
was relentless, as was the pressure to deal with the food issues that have continued
to dog me since infancy. There were some
great memories—but sometimes guilt and fear were the parenting techniques of choice. By the time I went away to college, I was
glad to be 650 miles away from the pressure at home.
But the wisdom that comes to twenty-somethings when they realize that they don’t actually know everything!—along with a year of therapy—resolved my anger and restored me to the parent who gave me so much of his own personality (as I’ve been told over and over through the years by those who knew him). I realized that Dad was only human, and doing the best he knew how to do—and that he truly, deeply loved me, as no one else could. I thank God that I got twelve more years with him after that.
Courage. Integrity. Generosity.
After Dad left us, I pondered what
I most wanted to exemplify in my own life, that I had learned from his... I have these three words written in the front
of my Bible, and for all the years since Dad’s death, I have tried to live out
these three qualities, as a way to honor his memory.
Courage—I’ve always trusted my own
instincts, as he did, and they’ve never let me down, even in risky situations... Integrity—I’ve tried to live out my Christian
faith as well as he did, in my financial life, my personal life, and on the
job, handling the money for a million-dollar law firm... Generosity—I’m still working on that
one. I can be selfish with my time and
money, but I strive not to be.
I just realized that these three
words spell out the first three letters of “cigarette.” Dad was a lifelong smoker, much to his own embarrassment,
as he felt it was not a good Christian witness nor a good example to his own children. But he started in World War II, where, he
once told me, cigarettes were a part of their daily K-Rations in the front
lines in France. He said, “The
cigarettes were necessary to calm our nerves, in order to do what they asked us
to do.” It’s a habit he wasn’t able to
break—and forty years later, it killed him, as lung cancer took away his breath
and then his life.
Dad used to say, “My job isn’t to raise happy children; my job is raise well-adjusted adults.” That made me pretty annoyed as a teenager, but I can appreciate it as an adult. I wish we’d had more years together! I’d give almost anything to have even an hour with him now.
My sister had a dream the night
after Dad died. In it, our family was
walking across a big, open meadow, towards a beautiful castle on a hill. Halfway across the meadow, we paused... Then Dad continued walking towards the shining
castle on the hill, and the rest of us turned around and began walking back the
way we had come. But I know someday I’ll
walk that meadow, too, and see him again in a better place. In the meantime, I’ll miss you, Dad.
In Loving Memory
Robert M. Wallin
January 23, 1923 - August 10, 1993