Our world loves a sensitive, nurturing woman. And our world loves a stoic, rational man. But our world shuts its doors and windows to a stoic, rational woman or a sensitive, nurturing man.

My father was a baby boomer, born from the generation that defeated fascism… for a while, anyway. His generation would go on to fight and lose in Vietnam, to fight for civil rights only to see many of those rights stripped away again, and to land on the moon and then never again return to that nearest celestial neighbor in their lifetimes. Theirs was an era of great hope, great possibility, and great disappointment, the beginning of real American cynicism in the face of optimism.

My father studied history, looking for clues in yesterday that would explain today and hint at tomorrow. He told us who we were related to, where we were from, and the tools people like us used to get to something better. My father was always taking us to places with scaled-down versions of things. Train sets, RC planes, you name it. Probably why we still like miniatures and models today. It is where I learned to see the world and my place in it from a high level instead of only seeing the small bit of it that surrounded me.

My father loved people. He loved long confusing drives and long confusing conversations. And trying to reconstruct either from memory will have your pulling out your hair. Maybe I got that second part from him, too.

My father was sick for a very long time. Physically, various illnesses were eating him up. There were times when he was so sick, he was like a skeleton in the halls and we were surprised we had not lost him already. My father wrestled with depression, with his own value, with his place in a world that gave him little cause to be optimistic. He was tortured by his demons, as one would expect of a person with great artistic insight and few outlets. He found solace in the church, and for that I am grateful.

My father was not a master painter or sculptor or musician or poet. But he could have been. Had he been born under almost any other life circumstances and walked into the studio of a renowned artist stating that the work he carried with him was his own, that he had created these exquisite paintings and this remarkable bust of his grandfather between ages 17 and 25 with no professional instruction, I have no doubt that today he would be known the world over.

Where my mother gave me math, my father gave me art. I am neither a great mathematician nor a great artist, but I’m okay at both. I think, however, that the integration of the two kinds of thinking has served me better than either individually. Many things like that influenced who I became.

I learned about guilt when I ruined one of my father’s paintings, a small seascape from when he was in the Navy. He wasn’t angry. He was very sad. Very disappointed. I had hurt him pretty bad. Guilt is a powerful emotion. I was still just a kid, but that feeling stayed with me, still does, and informs how I treat other people.

My father was passionate in anger and passionate in love. I heard stories about him as a kid being dragged back home by his brothers to keep him from pummeling some hoodlum into well-deserved oblivion. But this is the same kid that would stand quietly in a field of wildflowers for an hour, just still, just being there.

This is the same man who paced back and forth with an axe while kids up the street were setting off fireworks that could have burned our house down. When he finally relented and called the cops, he said to make sure they got there before he did.

This is the same man who has sent birthday, holiday, and anniversary cards every year to everyone he has ever met.

This is the same man who will be laying on the last bed he will ever sleep on and ask you how you are doing. If there’s anything that you need.

We were never too grown to hear that he loved us, to get a hug, or a kiss on the top of the head. And I never let myself get too old to hold his hand or lay my head on his shoulder.

It is a delicate balance, that strength in gentleness, that bravery in vulnerability. To be strong enough to withstand the weather, but not so impenetrable that no one can know you. To be gentle enough to love and be loved, but not so yielding that people will take advantage of you.

It’s hard and no one gets it right. But my father tried. I’d like to think some of it took in his children.

My father was a good man. He was a good man simply because he never stopped trying to be a better person, because he never gave in to his demons, and because he loved his family and everyone he met.

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