ROOTS & BRANCHES

I know it from the way my hair has balded with just a little tag remaining in the front center.

I know it from the way I can get angry pretty quickly, but also can cool off quickly, too.

And I know it, most scientifically, from the way my DNA results show me to be the correct relationships to known cousins in my paternal family tree.

What I know is that I’m truly my father’s son, that is, of Richard Lee Beidler, born July 5, 1928 (he liked to term himself a “belated firecracker”).

He was of the generation in which it was not uncommon for a man to spend his entire working career at one business (in his case the specialty steelmaker Carpenter Technology in Reading, PA).

My dad was diligent on the job (more about that later) and what he called “punctual”—but don’t  believe that, he was actually embarrassingly early (don’t know where he got that from!) and I’ve had to work equally diligently not always be embarrassingly early myself.

He was a voracious reader and that made birthdays and Christmas presents easy to buy; I’d always find him some books that would be stored on his nightstand until it was their turn to read, usually before bedtime (which came early for him his whole life—I think he never got over being raised on a dairy farm and having to “get up with the cows,” which then spelled retiring equally early.

When I say that he was a diligent worker, he used to talk disparagingly about other guys at CarTech who would “knock off” work for any number of lazy reasons.

So it was a surprise to me when I was living in Birmingham, AL, and had returned to Pennsylvania for an interview that mom told me that dad would be home on the Friday I was leaving to make steaks on the grill.

I asked her if CarTech was having an early quit (which sometimes happens). “No, he wanted to make sure he saw you and make your lunch,” she replied, which sounded like true love to me.

***

I was still in the first half of my 30s when dad was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1994. He fought it valiantly, even undergoing an experimental chemotherapy at the renowned Fox Chase cancer center near Philadelphia.

When the cancer returned after a year of remission, I was the point person with his doctors and received the assessment that no more treatments were possible. Giving him that news was probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever needed to do.

As I paused and stuttered out the words of that fatal diagnosis, he nodded his head with complete grace and calmness, “It’s the end of the road,” before continuing, “Take care of your mom; that’s all I ask.

And because I’m my father’s son, I did that as best I could at that.