Milestones for a Father

Milestones.
Points along the way that help to give you perspective on where you are on the journey of life.
Milestones are places that help you not to get lost or to find your way home.
Milestones are the places you find when you are going around in circles and it helps you to stop, get off the merry go round, and go where you to need to go.
Not every one has the same reference point; not all milestones point you in a specific direction; no milestone can be set without some sense of sacrifice and determination.

I graduated from college 30 years ago (1975). I knew it was an accomplishment. I knew it was a significant moment in my life. But, to be honest, I didn't know it was a milestone until after I had walked across the platform and received my degree (actually, it was a blank cover - my degree was still awaiting the grading of a final class I had finished the day before). As I went back to my seat, my father suddenly stood up. He had waited for hours in line in order to be the first in line to get a seat. The seat he wanted was one on the aisle along the path the graduates took when returning to their seats after receiving their degree. He wanted that seat so that he could do what he did at that moment. He stood to his feet in front of all those graduates and guests and shook my hand. He told me congratulations and that he was proud of me. It was only then that I realized that graduation was a milestone. Not as much for me, at that moment, as it was for him.
My father never finished high school. Growing up in the depression, work was the milestone, not college or schooling. You learned a trade, got a job, and helped to support the family. It was noble. It was admirable. But my father was also one of the "Greatest Generation" that went to war and won a world war. When it was over, my Dad came back home, started a family, got a job, and changed his goals and priorities. This son of a railroad conductor became a pipe fitter and maintenance supervisor at a Mobil Oil refinery. And he told his boys that he would do everything he could to make sure that they would go to college. It became his dream. And I became the milestone. The last of his three boys was getting a degree. His work; his dream; his goal; his milestone was complete. In less than five years he would be dead. And now, whenever I look at the diploma hanging on my office wall, I think of that milestone in his life.

Fast forward thirty years to yesterday, May 7, 2005. I spent the afternoon in the Ward Fieldhouse at Anderson University. There on the platform walked four people who have been important in my life. Kevin Stiffler, my friend and compatriot, received his Master of Divinity degree. My two future daughters-in-law, Maria (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) and Shafali (Bachelor of Arts in Theater) both received their degrees from Anderson University. But all of that paled in comparison to one young man who walked across the platform. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Theater. He is my youngest son, Joel. Now, all three of my boys have graduated from college (all at Anderson University - along with both Joanie and me and Joanie's father, John Williams) and all have received their degrees. And when Joel had walked off the platform and was walking down the aisle to return to his seat, a 52 year old father with a tear in his eye and joy in his heart, stood up from an aisle seat and hugged his son and told him, "I'm proud of you". It was a milestone. More mine than Joel's.