Dear Members and Friends,
For the life of me, I can’t recall the year. I was about 21, or slightly under. But there we were, at a restaurant celebrating my dad’s birthday.
We were gathered as a family, enjoying a meal at “The Black Bull”, an American style steak house that had become a universal favorite. These were the days when “salad bars” had just come into vogue, and at some point early on in the occasion, I realized something. While I had given my dad a gift I thought he would like, it dawned on me that up to that point in life, I had never stopped a conversation to say that I loved him.
Certainly I’d written, or scrawled, “Love, Billy” on many birthday, Valentine and Christmas cards. Yet, considering the span of almost two decades, it hit me that I’d never looked my father square in the eye and said, “I love you.”
Immediately, over the tossed greens, I started to rationalize how he should already know that I loved him. After all, I had always gotten him a present whenever circumstances dictated. Perhaps I was the one who should wait for him to say this to me. After all, wasn’t the _expression of affection primarily his job? Still, try as I might to avoid facing the gnawing urgency of this moral imperative, it soon became obvious to me that God was touching my heart to summon the strength and say to my dad what a father should not have to assume. To ignore the persistent nudge of this inner Spirit would also be to diminish its daily and enduring comfort.
Praying for the courage and ability to bring to fruition the vision of what I knew was right, the meal quickly passed. On the way toward home I sat in the rear seat of the beige and maroon Oldsmobile 98 knowing that I needed to secure a time alone, between him and me, so that I could express what was deep inside my heart.
We arrived back at the house, and as people piled out of the car, I paid close attention to where my father went to further unwind. There, in the den, bathed in ruddy hues from the incandescent light reflected off the dark wood paneling, he stood in solitude. Moving furtively forward in stealthy fashion so as not to call wider attention to myself, I entered the room before the television could be switched on.
Approaching from behind, “Hey dad?” I said, causing him to turn 180 degrees around. “Yes?” he replied, almost imperceptibly reaching into his pocket for the car keys.
“I love you.”
I said it. Then dad smiled and responded, “I love you too.”
Three little words that had required the prodding and power of the Almighty to utter! Yet, I had done it. While the calendar was never marked in red-letter recognition of this tremendous event, for me it was a crucial turning point. This was a moment that would easily take its place among my own personal top ten. For it was in saying, “I love you” to my dad, that I had become a man myself.
From Reverend William J. Keane,
Senior Minister of First Baptist Church of Branford
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