"Do you think about your dad on Father's Day?” My dad, who'd been fairly animated throughout our visit, quieted. I could see him look back in time.

“Yes,” he said quietly.

“What do you think about him?” I gently probed.

There was a silence. Then, “He was fearless. He wasn't afraid of anything!” More silence. “He had compassion...but he was hard.” More introspection. “He was a farmer...but he couldn't farm.”


Then the stories; there are always stories. That's what I wait for.

“One time in Gilbert, twelve men were out to get him. He stood his ground, dared them, and they all backed off and walked away.”

“He had a a good job in the mines, a leader, but he got sick and he couldn't work down there anymore. He bought a farm, but he really wasn't cut out to be a farmer. We survived, but he wasn't a farmer. My older brothers were gone, and at just fourth or fifth grade I had to work the fields. Mom worried about me, but Dad just said I could do it. He trusted me to do it.”

Back to fearless: “When we moved to Bluffton, everyone was Catholic and we were Lutherans. They tried to run us out of town. There was a town meeting, and Dad just walked down there and confronted those people. We didn't move.”

More introspection. “I think he liked us. Eleven kids ... he really didn't know how to be a father. There was no one to teach him, to help him. Mom had her family nearby, but Dad left Finland on his own as a teenager. I think he liked us.”

“He always wanted to go back to Finland to see his mother. How he longed to see his mother again. I thought about taking him when I got back from the war, but it didn't work out. Oh, how I wish I would have taken him to see his mother.”

He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse. Malachi 4:6