"Wait Until Your Father Gets Home"

{Non-Fiction}

Some lessons you just never forget...

Despite the denials, excuses, bargaining, crying, even silence, my 9-year-old heart knew that my Mom was right, and what I had done was wrong. Today, I couldn't even tell you what my heinous crime had been, but it was horrible enough for my Mother to use those words feared most by children, "wait until your Father gets home!"

Growing up in the mountain states in the 60’s was closer to a “Leave It To Beaver” lifestyle than you can imagine. A simpler world allowed more freedom than I would ever let my own children exercise. This freedom also opened the door to potential mischief, but we got into surprisingly little real trouble. But when we did cross the line, punishment was usually swift and severe.

“Wait until your Father gets home!”

My Mother was so agitated, that she couldn’t think of a punishment to fit the crime. That was to be my Father’s job… when he gets home.

My mother usually never seemed to lack creativity when it came to dealing out punishment. Both my younger sister and I had spent time in our rooms, time cleaning up messes, time sitting next to each other on the couch (to learn tolerance), washing windows (where we had to stare at each other), the wooden “spoon of discipline”, and my mother’s favorite, an old fly-back paddle ball paddle. Sometimes deferring punishment was punishment itself!

“Wait until your Father gets home!”

Exiled in my room, all I had was time to imagine how horrible my punishment would be. Would it hurt? Would it last long? Would I forever walk with a limp or sport a scar?

How was I to know that the punishment my Father would deal out that day would be more devastating than any form of physical torture a human being can devise?

My Father’s routine was exact. He left for work in the morning and returned every evening at the precisely the same time. Lying on my bed, the shadows on the wall told me more than any clock. Father should be home any minute…

“Wait until your Father gets home!” And now Father is home…

We lived in a small tract house. Large yard, but small structure; three bedrooms, three bathrooms and the obligatory basement, where most of the indoor mischief took place. I could easily hear the front door open from my room. I knew that after the standard greetings between my parents always comes the question, “How was your day?”

Maybe my mother has cooled down by now, maybe my transgressions have been tempered by time (and my silent exile), and the impending punishment would be forgotten! I cannot hear the conversation but the tone is unmistakable… instead of mellowing with passing time, my Mother has been brooding… waiting for this moment. She can now unload, spew forth; release all of the anger that has been brewing inside her like cowboy coffee. I’m doomed!

My father, in his ever quiet way, calms my mother and accepts his role as the high executioner. Their conversation ends, and I can hear my father’s dress oxfords walk down the hardwood floor to my room. He stops at my open door and (uncharacteristically) knocks before he steps in. Sensing the importance of punishment swiftly delivered, he hasn’t even taken the time to remove his suit coat and tie.

“Your mother tells me you {did this horrible thing that I don’t remember now}. Is that true?” my father asks.

“Well, I was…”

“Yes or no?” he calmly interrupts.

There’s no escaping my punishment now, no where to hide, no where to run… trapped.
“Yes” I reply, in a quiet voice. My course is set, my destiny sealed; my punishment impending, but what will it be?

My father pauses, and takes it all in; the crime, the criminal, the accuser. His decision on my fate is made in an instant. I can see it in his eyes.

“Son” he says, “I’m so disappointed in you.”

No sting from a lash or belt, or strike from a hand or the dreaded “spoon of discipline” could have cut as deep.

All through my young life, I had tried pretty hard to succeed at everything I had set out to do. I wasn’t a stellar athlete; I wasn’t an honor student; but I always tried hard. The sparkling gray eyes and easy smile of my dad as he told me, “I’m proud of you”, was my reward for trying my best. It didn’t matter if I won the race, caught the ball or aced the test, his joy was watching me perform.

Years later, when I was in high school, dad would sit for hours watching me swim during swim practice… not swim meets, practice. Every day he’d use the same cliché line on the only other dad sitting in the bleachers watching us plot back and forth. “That’s my boy” he would say to Joel McCrea, whose son Pete was my team mate.

“I’m so disappointed in you.”

Punishment delivered...

I tried so hard to hold in my feelings, but those sparkling gray eyes of his cut right through me. The tears blurred my vision, and the flood could not be held back. My mom, wide-eyed and frantic, rushed into the room, fearing that some terrible carnage had occurred.

But my father, ever strong, ever loving, always wise, merely held me tight in his arms. He didn’t speak a word. He knew he didn’t have to. Whatever horrible thing I had done, I could guarantee you that it would never be repeated.

“Its okay” he told me, and squeezed me tighter. He didn’t say the words, it wasn’t his way, but I knew he loved me with all his heart.

Some lessons need to be learned the hard way; boy I learned a lot more than I bargained for that day. The crime has long been forgotten but the lesson is still fresh. Now with young children of my own, I can look back and understand clearly that force of will does not teach a lasting lesson. But a quiet, loving, sparkling gray-eyed man with high expectations can change your life with some simple words.

-=-=-=-

May 9th is my father’s birthday, and it will be six years since he passed away on Father’s Day, 2003. I hope I live long enough to become half the man, half the father he was. He is in my thoughts every day, and his words and lessons help guide me as I try to raise my children to be the best they can be. And yes, I am exceedingly proud of them all…


Happy birthday dad… my father, my best friend, my mentor.

Copyright © 2009, S. A. Riches. All rights reserved.