Dad,
I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately and how you are in this weird in-between of working and retiring. Your age tells you one thing, but I think your health and motivation and bank account tell you another. It’s obvious you want more vacations and travel opportunities, but your bosses at work are not excited about you acting retired while still employed.
It’s true that your granddaughters miss you, but I miss you too. I don’t want to just see you once a year . . . that is not enough. But it was also me who moved away in the first place, so let’s not go pointing fingers, okay?
The truth is, ever since we lost your parents and Mom’s parents, I realized you, Mom, and all the siblings and spouses are next because you are all roughly the same age and same generation. It’s a sobering thought to orphan myself, so I won’t do it. But it would be naive of me to skip over the truth. So I see the truth and let it motivate me instead of depress me. I covet our remaining time together, no matter how long it is. Every second suddenly counts more than it did before. (Sorry!)
You are the hardest worker I know, probably one of the hardest workers in the world. You wouldn’t say that; you would spout some statistic about people in third-world countries working 23 hours a day or something.
But here and now, in my world, it’s you. You have never fainted in exhaustion, (except for maybe after those half-marathons you used to run) even though you have worked yourself into a few winter colds. Your throat closes up a bit, and you take on that voice I remember hearing when you woke up from day naps after working the night shift in the Emergency Room. Yet, you still go to work.
Your father had a tremendous work ethic, and you taught it to your kids too. When you and Mom ran the printing business about the time I was in middle school, you paid me to stuff envelopes or stick address labels in the corners. You paid my brothers to mow the lawn, and I gave up a few Saturday mornings digging in the concrete cracks in our driveway to rip out weeds for allowance. The skin on the top and sides of my fingers was sore for days.
During one vacation at a water park, you handed out five-dollar bills to my brothers and me. I was appalled, thinking that was so much money and so frivolous. We were just going to waste it on the arcade in the front of the park, our tokens sinking into a machine never to be seen again. My brothers took off toward the basketball games and squirt gun races to win prizes. The five-dollar bill in my hand felt crisp and cool, something I didn’t deserve. We were already at the water park, did we need to spend more money? (This was my mama’s frugality seeping through my brain, which has kept me alive more times than I can count! So I guess, thanks, Mom!)
I was young, and so so stupid. You said, “Kim, it’s okay. Go have fun.” I can’t imagine anything kinder to say to a kid who blatantly questioned your financial capabilities. I wish I could go back and steal that $5 bill and run to the first cotton candy stand I could find, a “thank you” dancing on the breeze behind me. When my kids grow up and test me like that, I hope I show the immense mercy you showed me.
I guess what I am trying to say is that I can see how hard it is for you to pry your hands off the steering wheel of a working life. You have been working hard since the days of shoveling manure under a hot Michigan summer at a pig farm. You have been a top employee for so many companies even when people file false malpractice suits against you. You have given countless hours to your patients, faithfully, for decades. Is there anything that can knock you down? I don’t want to find out.
Retirement might be just around the corner for you. Or it might be light-years away. All I know is I can’t be more proud to be your daughter than right now, knowing that you have never given up. Not one day in your life have you thrown up your hands, walked away, and never looked back at the life God has given you. You have given it your all, and I know you are grateful for every gift God has dropped in your open arms.
I love you. I want you to work for as long as you want to work. I want you to know when that last day should be. And I don’t want to try to control you because you are the exact person I want in my life. You, just the way you are, with big, tense shoulders and a few crooked knuckles. You are my Dad, and I trust you.
I am always missing you unless I am hugging you tight and resting my head on your chest, laughing with you about donuts and hikes and corny jokes and our family. And someday (decades away) when you are truly gone from this earth, completely retired and free from all suffering, that is going to be the thing I will absolutely miss the most.
Love,
Kimberly
by Meg Duncan 
by Linsey Driskill 
