Live, Love, Laugh And Be Happy

Staying in Campbell River has not been easy for me.  My dad and I don't really get along and don't see eye to eye on many things...  for example swearing in front of children...

Dad's big on swearing.  Every second word is an "F" bomb, and he believes he's a man's man, and all real men behave as he does.  Now picture a 240 lb man in his 60's, who considers himself a lady's man, swears like a truck driver and has an attitude resembling that of a cave man.  With a thick European accent.  Archie Bunker couldn't hold a candle to my dad.  That's what I'm dealing with here.  I love my dad, but wow...  Abrasive, rough around the edges...  Loud...  A customer service representative's worst nightmare...

So...  Glen took Dayton fishing yesterday with his Aussie brother in law Iain, the one who presented grandpa's beautiful eulogy...  and fell in the water with his iPhone...  You can imagine the agony.  I know I myself can not live without my blackberry...  The screams of horror. 

So Dayton goes to grandma Margaret and tells her all about how "daddy only worried about his God damned phone." 

Awkward.

All my hard work of teaching Dayton to use his words properly have gone out to pasture.  All done.  Months of work, all gone.  And let's not forget my dad's brilliant idea of getting him a PSP with an army gun game...  Poof!  All my hard work gone straight out the door.  My boy's back to drawing guns and cutting them out.  I'm mortified.  Thinking of keeping Dayton home for an extra week when we get home.  I don't trust him to go to school now.  My dad thinks this is funny. 

So, I'm left with a couple of choices...  Risk angering my dad (please keep in mind that he's 240 lbs, and strong as a bull, and has been known to throw his weight around) which I believe to be physically dangerous, or continue whining that his behavior is inappropriate.  Either way, it doesn't look good, and I have a week to go...

So, in my search of comfort, I've found a poem I'd like to share with you, and I wish I knew who the author was to give them credit, but here it is anyways... 

When you are so sure that someone is out to hurt you, it becomes very difficult to forgive their shortcomings.  It is much easier to believe that people develop clever and malicious ways to inflict hurts on you than it is to accept that they are merely humans doing what humans do.  For some strange reason, it is much easier to take everything very personally rather than to accept people as they are, forgive them for what they do, and release them from our lives.  We know very well how to be a victim.  Being a person who refuses to be  victimized seems to be where we have trouble.

Perhaps it is easier to be a victim, because if we really try to understand people we will see many pieces of our self.  If we see those pieces of our self, we would have to forgive other people.  Forgiveness takes courage.  Courage begins in character.  A good solid character requires a level of self-esteem so many of us believe we do not have.  One way you can enhance your self-esteem is to stop being so willing to be a victim.  In order not to be a victim, we must develop the courage to speak up for ourselves.  The only way we can develop this kind of courage is to be real clear about who we are.  When we know who we are, we will realize that no one can do anything to harm us unless we keep them around and allow them to do so. 

Seems I have some things to think about in regards to my dad, don't I?




Consider yourselves hugged,


Lou