Dad told me to be quiet!

Sage wisdom for a busy life

“Learn to be quiet, and you’ll observe that you’re being watched.” – JRM

When I was a younger man and my children were small, I remember my dad speaking with me about his regrets in raising my brothers and me. My father, Randy, was a stout, blue-collar man. He worked in an industrial plant and farmed throughout my entire life. Dad loved newly tilled ground, the smell of cows, and the focus of hard work. His hands were the largest I’ve ever seen in person. He would put my brothers and me in the loft of a barn to catch 100-pound square bales, and then single-handedly throw an entire trailer load up into the loft while we struggled to keep up.

I loved the man, and most of all, I respected him. It’s unfortunate that many don’t see the value of hard work or sweat equity. My dad treasured it more than fine jewelry. He had a deep common sense and could see right through people’s masks and facades. If he liked you, he would give you anything he had. If he didn’t, he left you with no doubt about it.

Dad was in no way perfect, and he never claimed to be. He had a temper, was prone to swings in that temper, and my brothers and I bore witness to it more than once. That said, he was never the first to speak. However, from my observation, he was usually the last. When he spoke, he carried and demanded a respectable authority. People listened to him.

These traits, I believe, he developed with age. At one time, he was a young man trying to figure out life, provide for a family, and raise children. My parents had us early, and as I grew, I saw a man who was growing right along with me. Although I couldn’t recognize it at the time, he was working through his own personal alchemy by trial and error.

Dad taught me to be quiet, to watch the room, and to notice that people were watching me. He taught me to speak little, so that when I do speak, it carries weight. This sage wisdom has helped me in business, in my marriage, with my children, and in my personal life. I will forever be grateful for the lesson. Dad was stoic, strong, and genuine.

Dad died in October of 2022. Having just baled his last bale of hay for the season, he parked the tractor, came into the house, and fell ill. Two weeks later, he was in the hospital on a respirator with COVID-19 B. The hospital—which refused to allow my mom to sit with him—used sedatives to keep him unconscious, as he wanted to go home, and he ultimately died from the effects of those sedatives.

Every year in the fall, as the field is cut, I remember snippets of Masonic funeral rites. They are reimagined here for my dad:

“The fall is here; the harvest is reaped.
Like the autumn crop, we too shall be leveled so that all that remains will be chaff.
Our ambitions are laid to waste, our tools laid down.
The king’s scepter and the beggar’s staff are made to be equal.
As we hope, autumn ushers in the promise of spring’s return.
Life will return, the crop replanted; someone new will gather our working tools and put them to use.
Although we may not see it, life will continue.
A new year, a new generation, a new harvest.
Your sons will continue, your grandchildren will remember you, and until we meet again, you will be with God, and He will be with us.”

Your family here on Malkuth.