A Simple Gesture

I guess it’s no secret that the way we live our lives often speaks louder than our words.

This was brought home to me in a beautiful way by a letter I received from our oldest child, Michael.

The background is that in between the bookends of my career as a sports writer and columnist, I worked for SamTrans, the San Mateo (California) County Transit District in the department that was responsible for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Our three children grew up during those years and from time to time would visit me at work with my wife.

Michael graduated with a B.A. in psychology from Simpson College in Redding, California, and then got his master’s in that field from the University of Hartford. His practical experience during those years included working with psychiatric patients, for whom he developed a music appreciation program. After graduation, he worked with juvenile offenders in the Hartford area, many of them from underprivileged backgrounds. He now has a private counseling practice in Kansas City, Missouri.

Here’s the letter Michael sent to me in 2012:

I’ve been reflecting lately about my life and how I came to be the person I am today, and I just want to thank you for the impact you’ve had on me. I know that the reason I decided to help people for a living is because of the qualities you demonstrated. I remember visiting you at SamTrans when I was littler. I remember we were outside once, and someone with Down’s syndrome came up to you. I was young and didn’t know what Down’s syndrome was, but I could tell he was different. But I remember you knew his name, and you were talking to him for a while.

It was amazing that you could treat someone who was so different just like everybody else. To this day, that image has stayed with me. It was very powerful for me to see that. You might not have known it, but you modeled compassion for me, and I know this is why I now have compassion for those in need. I wrote a little something in grad school a few years back about why I was in the field of psychology. I mentioned you.

You have always been patient and understanding. Whenever I had a problem, I could always come to you. You always had a way of making me feel that the things I worried about were just not as bad as I made them out to be. And now I am doing that for others. I guess that what I’m trying to say is that as I’ve grown older and have seen myself become a man, I am glad to see that I turned out a lot like you.

And here’s a portion of that letter Michael wrote in grad school:

As I was growing up, my father worked for a transportation company. I do not think I ever fully understood what he did, exactly, but I know he worked directly with individuals with physical and mental disabilities and helped to ensure that the buses, trains, and other modes of transportation were equipped properly for people with disabilities, in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

I still have memories of visiting my dad at work, and what sticks out most for me are the memories of him interacting with disabled individuals. As a child, I was very aware of the fact that these people were very different than others. And, as a kid, these differences can be frightening. But watching my dad calmly talk to them and treating these disabled individuals like they were normal (as a kid, disabled people usually just seem weird!) had a lasting impact on me.

And so early on in my life, my father modeled such things as empathy, compassion, and the belief that no matter the hand that someone is dealt, so to speak, there is always the possibility of a better life for them. My father also demonstrated a unique ability to normalize anyone’s experience. He could take any disability or oddity that someone possessed and put it on a continuum of human behavior. In other words, disabled or not, everybody experiences struggles that they must overcome, obstacles that they must adapt to. I do not know if my father knows he taught me this, but he did. The overlap of my dad’s qualities with a therapist’s is unavoidable.

I don’t write this to pat myself on my back. The Lord knows I have my faults and was not the perfect parent.

No, I write this to encourage readers to recognize the impact they have on their children, friends and neighbors in the way they conduct themselves. I credit any of those positive qualities my son noticed in me to the transformation Jesus made in my life when I turned my life over to him when I was 25 years old.

But that’s another story.