Because he was my father

I try to lead my life according to God’s word because I love rather than fear Him. Fear of judgment is entirely appropriate of course but it’s the love that defines us as Christians. I’ve sometimes compared it to why I tried to obey my father. While he had authority over me I didn’t consciously fear him but always loved him.

When he died I realized that I hadn’t loved him enough. Do any of us, I wonder, love God enough? When I was a boy I would stand next to my dad as he washed his hard, calloused hands and would tell me tales of his own childhood and let little drops of moral tuition fall into my lap. Simple and quite marvellous. “A promise is a promise.” It was. He never broke one. He was my father.

He drove a London taxi for 40 years, a job that paid a decent wage if you were willing to work a 70-hour week. When I was small and we were driving back from soccer matches he would sometimes pick up people along the way. He wasn’t supposed to, not with me there. But I was six or seven and sat in the hollow space next to the driver’s seat where the luggage was stored.

I could never understand why some passengers treated him with such contempt. He was “cabby” and “you!” No he wasn’t, he was my dad. But he smiled, said nothing, did his job. They weren’t good enough to walk in his shadow. I knew that, and he knew I knew that. Which is what really mattered.

And then he told me stories from his past, such as about the times he boxed for the RAF. Oh the pride. And about how his German cousin had gone back to Berlin in the 1930s to rescue his family. The family did not escape and the cousin never came back. A long time ago, said my father, not for you to worry about. He winked, a wink full of confidence. Never again, he said. I believed him. He was my father.

He always looked so strong, so able to protect me. Strong enough to cry when he felt the need. I heard him weep when my grandmother died. How should I react? Just be there, as he was for me. He came into my room, saw the fear on my face and recited a short prayer with me for my grandma. He kissed me and then drove me to school before putting in his 10 hours. No grumbles, no moans. Of course not. He was my father.

I remember his joy when I went to university, the first in the family to do so. He took too many photographs when I graduated and didn’t understand the Latin spoken before the meal. So what! His wisdom was born long before the Romans imposed their language on the world.

He felt a little out of place but all that concerned this working man in a smart suit was that his son would not follow in his footsteps. “Do you know why I work such long hours?” he would ask me. “So that you won’t have to tip your hat to everybody.” Then he’d pause. “So that you won’t have to.” Not said with bitterness but with resolution.

He didn’t come on vacations with us to the English coast very often, just didn’t have the money. He stayed behind and worked. We’d telephone him and tell him we loved him. He already knew. When my first child, Daniel, was born, my dad said little. Just sat, stared and smiled. A circle had been completed, a story had been told, a great knight had won his battles. He spoke through his eyes. And what eloquence he had.

When I went to see him in hospital after his death I saw not my father but merely the vehicle in which his soul and spirit had lived. I apologized to him for not loving him enough, kissed his forehead and said goodnight. He was with God, whom we seldom love enough. Then I cried. Because he was, in every sense, my father. Thank God.