It isn’t easy living in the shadow of an icon.
People are always looking for some sort of scandal, some hint of hypocrisy. It seems unbelievable that anyone could actually be as good as the picture plastered across a million bedroom walls.
There has to be feet of clay; here in America the national pastime is not baseball; it’s knocking down idols. There is nothing people love as much as showing the world that their heroes are flawed.
My father wasn’t an angry man; he couldn’t afford to be. He lived his entire life in a world of cardboard, where the slightest mistake would mean disaster. It was like being an overweight man carefully making his way through a shop filled with small aisles crammed with delicate glassware.
He wasn’t a greedy man. The wealth of the world was at his fingertips any time he wanted it. He could have dug up buried gold or sunken treasure at a moment’s notice, or even turned his name to endorsements like any other celebrity.
Fame meant nothing to him; I never knew anyone as humble with as little reason to be.
It wasn’t that he was perfect, by any means. He was stubborn, and although he liked to present himself as being the laid back person in his relationship with my mother, he could be a bit of a perfectionist himself.
Of course, comparing his perfectionism to that of my mother was like comparing the light of the moon to the sun, but it was there.
He wasn’t as competitive as my mother, but occasionally he had a competitive streak. He liked to tease my mother a little more than was healthy for her, especially when her competitiveness got out of control.
Eating the last Twinkie didn’t bother him at all, and with super speed it was years before we even had a chance at it.
Yet although his work kept him away from us far more often than we would have liked, we never doubted his love for us. We were a family, and together we were more than we ever were apart.
Seeing who he was with my mother gave me hope that I could someday find someone who would make my life better.
It’s easy to see how preacher’s kids rebel. It’s a little like standing in the shadow of a giant sequoia, two hundred and fifty feet tall while you are just a sapling.
It can feel like you’ll never make your own mark on the world, and it can seem easier to simply lash out.
But he never pressured us to go into the family business. All he ever worried about was that we were good people, that we had fulfilling, happy lives.
While many see the measure of a man in his legacy, he never seemed to care about that. He only wanted to help people and to love his family.
He succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations.
Despite all the challenges in our lives, we always knew we were loved, and we always felt protected.
What better legacy could anyone want?
