I'm 45 and I still need my dad... (continued)

In To Own a Dragon Donald Miller recounts the time he learned about musth, a periodic condition in bull elephants, characterized by highly aggressive behavior. The way I remember Miller telling it is that at this point in the young elephant’s life he is usually befriended by an older male elephant. During the musth cycle, the senior elephant takes time to teach the younger elephant the “ropes” of all things adult elephant from foraging for food to wooing women.

One popular website says this about musth: Musth is linked to sexual arousal or establishing dominance, but this relationship is far from clear. Cases of elephants goring and killing rhinoceroses in national parks in Africa have been documented and attributed to musth in young male elephants, especially those growing in the absence of older males.

It is worth noting that when these young male elephants do not have the influence of an older male that the potential of him going nuts increases incredibly.

So, what does this have to do with me now? What does this have to do with a 45 year old still needing his dad? Well, my dad died when I was eighteen years old - about the equivalent of when a young male elephant enters musth. And, like the elephants that went crazy and killed rhinos, I was once a young male with more questions than answers and more frustrations than I had the ability to deal with in a healthy way. What I needed was my father’s ear and advice, but lost that and more much too soon.

And now, as I am in my mid-forties, I seem to discover on a regular basis the positive impact a father can have on his adult age son. When I was young my dad did show me how to start the mower without hurting myself, how to use a stick-shift, the best way to wash a car, and what good golf course etiquette is.

But, it was the stuff that comes after that I so sorely missed. Not once did I get the college age lesson from dad asking “how are you going to afford that?” As a new husband I never had the opportunity to call him to enquire about this new creature I was living with. When I became a dad I didn’t get the chance ask him about balancing work, church, and home. And now that I am a parent of adult children, I sense that I am “winging it” because I never got to see my dad relate to me or my siblings as adults.

In short, I missed out on a whole lot. And I am less than I could have been.

more thoughts to come…