I Am My Father's Son

There are several things I want to write about including my "holiday" in Canada and the new James Bond film, but I think I will spread them out onto several posts over the coming few days. There is something that I want to write about in particular today though...

I spent what was supposed to be this past "weekend" working. It made me think of how hard my father works. In fact a lot of things lately have been making me think about how the older I get, the more I am becoming like my father. For instance, when my father used to come visit us in Canada for holidays, he would be up every day at 6 am to talk on the phone with work, fix things around the house, mow the lawn/shovel snow (according to the season), etc. I'd admired that about him, but was also rather puzzled by how someone can work during what was ostensibly his holidays. Well, my father and I both coincidentally had holidays (or rather "holidays" more on this later) in Canada at the same time a couple weeks back, and this time the roles were reversed. It was I who was up at 6 am to check my work email, respond to queries and do various other work-related activities, while my father slept in all the way until 8 am.

Spending this last weekend working also made me think about how I used to resent my father's work ethic when I was growing up. I would get upset when he would come home from work late in the evening, too tired to drive me somewhere, or when he would work on weekends rather than stay at home. To me, this seemed like a serious case of misplaced priorities. Working 12 - 13 hours a day during the week plus weekends now, I really appreciate the sacrifices my father made in order to provide for his family, as well as the personal fulfillment that he rightly gained from doing his job, and being damned good at it. Over the years, my appreciation and admiration for my father, both as a person and as a professional, has continued to grow. I've never seen anyone as good at what they do, as my father is at his job.

All my life people have remarked on the resemblance I bear to my father, both in terms of appearance as well as personality. In the past I did not always welcome this observation, but I now increasingly take pride in being compared to my father. I can only hope to become even half the person he is.