Working with Dad

Jim Olson

originally authored 6/15/11 / edited 2/13/24

Dad passed away in August of 1997.   Mom remained in the home they shared together for another 26 years. Particularly, when I was helping her with things around the home, I would see his fingerprints everywhere; reminders of his steady and constant efforts in making things…and making them right.  It has dawned on me he mostly left those fingerprints on my soul.

My parents, having had a status from meager beginnings and having worked themselves into that middle class range, rarely took leisure time.  The thought of recreation for recreation’s sake was at least one future generation away from them, and as I grew up, it did not occur to me that dad in all his perpetual motion in work around the house found his recreation in many selected home projects. 

As a jack of all trades, I watched dad move as electrician, plumber, carpenter, welder, and many other natural talents that he possessed, and in a recent moment of clarity, I understood that the application of those talents were his quiet passion which he applied as leisure.

Having been laid-off from a job, I found myself in my garage with time on my hands.  My eyes fell on the bulky generator tucked into a corner and I again thought of my aching back every time I moved the unit around.  I thought about the $123.00 wheel kit I had priced out but was nowhere near a priority in the scheme of our budget concerns.  I then looked over at the rack of miscellaneous flat metal and angle-iron my mom had asked me to take from dad’s old welding stock and subtly, at that moment, there was dad’s hand on my shoulder.  

I do not possess a fraction of my dad’s raw talent for making with his hands that which he desired, but I do try.  I spent hours over the next two days quietly and happily engrossed in designing, measuring and welding from materials on hand, a wheel kit frame complete with tow bar attachment.  At any given moment, I would find myself smiling as I remembered dad immersed in his projects, always demonstrating a passionate methodical process that I now found myself embracing in this task.  While the urge for sadness over his lacking physical presence would come creeping, the comfort of his company throughout those hours was as tangible as the work I held in my hands.

It was, to say the least, good to be working with Dad again.  I was delighted to have the meaningful satisfaction of his influence still so strong, and better, to have the joy of appreciating it.  

Working with Dad never felt so good.