Humble Heart

I am a 60 year old father of four so Father’s Day is pretty special and yesterday was no exception. As I looked around our house at all the people who had gathered there to help celebrate Father’s Day with me, I felt very blessed. I don’t know if I deserved all their attention but I do know that being the Dad of a loving family is a real blessing…and that having a loving Dad in your family is a real blessing. So I can’t imagine what it would be like to grow up without Dad. Unfortunately I do know what it’s like to have an awesome Dad - and then lose him.

My Dad passed away more than 14 years ago and yet I still miss him every single day. He was truly special for many reasons, strong and brave, intelligent and funny, the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back, and yet if I had to name one trait that stands out more than any other…it would be his humble heart. I’ll give you two examples.

 - In 1967 my Dad was a Marine Corps Lieutenant at Camp Pendleton. He drove a beat up 55 Chevy to work every day and since this was the era of Hippies and Flower Children, my sister and I thought it would be cool to decorate his car to make it look better. So we put flower decals and “Peace and Love” stickers all over it. Needless to say, when my Dad saw his car he wasn’t happy. No tough Marine wanted sissy stickers all over his car, but my Dad was different. He told us he appreciated the thought but that maybe just one sticker would be enough. We took off all the stickers except one big flower decal with the word “Peace” in the middle and off to work he went. We kind of figured he would remove that sticker before he got to the base, but he didn’t. That sticker stayed in place for years, an obvious example of his humility.

 - In 1969 my Dad was stationed at the Tustin Air Base and was in charge of a Helicopter Squadron that was preparing to go to Vietnam. One of the men under his command overdosed on LSD and tried to commit suicide by climbing to the top of one of the Blimp Hangers and jumping off. My Dad climbed up after him, 300’ in the air, and wrestled with him for hours before paramedics were able to subdue him. They gave my Dad the Marine Corp Medal of Valor, but he never talked about it. Not only that, after he passed away I found the Medal and a letter signed by the President of the United States, buried in the bottom of his desk drawer. He never talked about the Medal or the letter, just another example of his amazing humility.

During the last few weeks of his life, I visited my Dad every day at the hospital. Here again he was brave and humble, never once complaining about his situation or talking about himself. Instead he would always ask me how I was doing and what was going on in my life. As I sit here writing this Monday Message I can see now that he was teaching me the absolute best example of humility…that we should always care more about other people, than ourselves.

Dad...I love you and miss you.
Thank you for teaching me to have a humble heart!

Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts. It means freedom from thinking about yourself at all.
~ William Temple