the right tool for the job

my dad can fix anything. and if it can't be fixed, he can build something beautiful in its place.

my earliest memory involves things my dad built. I was standing in a sandbox he made in our yard calling to the neighbor lady across the bushes. she wasn't even in sight, but there I was yelling her name for the whole neighborhood to hear.I remember being fascinated that her name, myrtle, was the same word for the flowering trees that separated her yard from ours. my dad came out and scooped me out of the sandbox and told me that little girls don't call grown up ladies by their first names, especially at the top of their lungs. even then he was building: building my manners, building our relationship together, building our relationship with that neighbor lady, building me up even as he was correcting me.

my dad built another sandbox that year for my kindergarten classroom. we moved to a different state shortly after that, and he quickly built a clubhouse in our new backyard. we moved again and he built a two story deck on the back of our new house. I drew up dream plans for a window seat/bookshelf combination that I'd always wanted, and he built that, too. we moved again. he built more bookshelves for his book-loving daughter. when the high school marching band needed new uniform racks, I volunteered my dad. he welded racks that I feel certain are still in use. he built custom shelves for my college dorm room. then he built a matching set for my roommate.

if my dad couldn't fix it, he knew who to call. he started a home repair and tree removal business and told all his customers, "the only thing you need to remember is this: call trent first." and they did. when trees fell, when pipes burst, when cross country moves needed to happen, people knew to call my dad. when my car would break down (and since I spent most of college driving my grandmother's 1983 oldsmobile it happened a lot), I always called my dad before I called AAA because wherever I was in the state, he had a friend nearby. if nothing else he could help me decide what to do next. his advice in distressful situations usually involved taking a milkshake break first and foremost.

my dad could help fix people, too. when kids were getting kicked out of the local high school for disruptive behavior, he started an alternative school just for them, one of the first in the country. and it worked. he would race those boys across the parking lot after lunch, them in their saggy jeans and him in his suit and tie. investment was the way to fix what was broken there. he believed it and I saw it in action every time I would sit and watch him play "one more point, just one more point," on the basketball hoop behind the boys' group home where he worked. I remember the day one of those boys fell to the ground in the middle of a seizure and banged his head on the pole of the goal. my dad knew what to do, and everything turned out okay.

then came the season of my life when I just didn't think my dad could fix things for a while. it was an intense combination of crummy life circumstances that felt out of control and a prideful stance that I should be able to handle things on my own. I knew I was making decisions my dad didn't understand, and I didn't know how to explain the hard stuff to him or anyone else. I know it was hard for him to know there were things in my life he couldn't fix, and even harder to know I didn't even want him to try. he had to wait for me to figure it out, and waiting can be such hard task for a man known for his plans of action.

but in this case waiting was the fix. patience was the tool he needed most and he used it most expertly. love looks like a million different things: a sandbox in the back yard, a ride to school in a dump truck, pulling out splinters and sliding kneecaps back into place with gentleness only the "daddy doctor" can have. love looks like requiring boys to come to the front door rather than honking from the driveway. love is knowing when to make the phone call and when to give it space. love is patient and kind, even when fixing it would be so much easier.

I'm back to believing my dad can fix anything worth fixing. he's proven it to be true too many times for me to think anything different. and if it can't be fixed, I know he'll already be working hard to build something else beautiful instead.