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My Father's Mantle

© Walter Benefield

My Father's Mantle

I measure my life by your standard, a loving man with an enormous sized heart designed for compassion and giving. You have bestowed on me your legacy and like a mantle I wear it sometimes reluctantly and other times with pride.

I was skeptical over the idea that bad memories fade quickly while the more pleasant memories linger in the empty spaces left behind. It was not until I thought about my father and Father's Day just over the horizon that I began to think maybe there is some true to this idea of fading bad memories.

I am taken back to my childhood with my father even though I miss him and I know our time together was not always the best of times even so I find it hard to remember the bad times now that he is gone, deceased I mean.

It's not sentiment that I feel in the absence of my father but It's a heaviness that’s felt under the burden of his history, my history, our history. The burden is not a difficult load to bear but one stamped with the label "handle with care." My Father was not an educated man and he was not a wealthy man either but his heart was large and he gave to others, living his life by an unspoken motto, "treat others better than myself."

Philanthropist Andrew Carnegie gave out of his abundant resources and established foundations and institutions that to this day still bear his name. In the spirit of Carnegie, my Father built two institutions that bear his name to this day, my brother and I. Being human institutions, we have flaws and like our father, now forgiven for our mistakes, we in turn are raising our own institutions. My Father would beam with delight over his children and grandchildren who will span the next generations and I know he would take comfort in knowing that his legacy of giving and kindheartedness has continued and will continue into the future.

This Father's Day I am not mourning over the loss of my father instead I am celebrating the greatness that my father possessed as for this mantle, I wear it with pride always keeping my fathers motto "treat others better than myself", in mind, I know that's how he would have wanted it.

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