A Son's Forgiveness and a Father's Pride (standard:Inspirational stories, 2030 words)
Author: CL Schilling	Added: Nov 16 2011	Views/Reads: 3070/1976	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A short non-fiction story about forgiveness, love, and family.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

With my grandfather looking on, my dad and I began to pull the water
softener out of the shed and started to tilt it into my grandfather's 
car. Amazed at how well it was rolling, my father made a comment about 
how easy it was to move without a dolly, something both the elder 
Schilling men forgot to bring with them from home. 

But as we began to tip the top of the water softener into the car, I
knew something didn't seem right. With the car parked down hill and the 
water softener loaded with salt and remaining water in the bottom, the 
top lid that held the contents inside didn't seem to be tightened real 
well. And then it happened. 

“Oh mother of God,” my father said followed by a few expletives. All at
once the salt pebbles and a few gallons of salt water ran out of the 
water softener and into the back seat of my grandfather's car which he 
kept looking like an antique in a car museum. 

Looking on, my grandfather didn't say anything, other than an “oh, God”
as my father used his jacket to soak up the salt water which is the 
worst thing for a car to have spilled throughout it. 

Seeing my father frustrated over accidents was something not knew to me.
While I had always loved my father dearly and admired his intellect, 
his ability to talk with others, and his laid back personality which 
was the opposite of my mother, my father's only downfall was how angry 
he would get when something would break. And while my father was never 
violent towards me when I was younger, I always feared my father's 
vocal response when ever I would accidentally break something. 

My mother used to say that my father inherited this sense of nervousness
and anxiety from his own father. And this could be true, especially 
since my grandfather (and grandmother) wrestled with alcoholism during 
the later part of my father's childhood. And when my father would 
occasionally be careless like any child would with things, my 
grandfather would come down hard on him. 

While my father never disagreed with my mother's statement, I did know
that my mother's first impression of her future father-in-law involved 
seeing my intoxicated grandfather curse out my father at a family 
summer picnic at the summer cottage in the early in 1970s while my dad 
tried to fix a flat tire on his girlfriend's (my mother's) car.  In 
hindsight just on the outside my dad, who in the 1970s had a long 
beard, was fairly liberal, and (like my mother) was free spirited, 
could be pictured clashing with his father.   But I do know that 
particular day was hard on my father as my mother recalled her heart 
dropping when she heard my grandfather tell my dad that he will never 
accomplish anything in his life. 

But all that was in the past. At least, that is what my father believed.
While my mother never really forgave my grandfather for his 
mistreatment to my dad during that summer visit to the cottage, my 
father did. And my father started to forgive him when he stopped 
drinking a few years later when a friend took him to an AA meeting. But 
while my father forgave my grandfather, my grandfather and my dad never 
really talked about what happened in the past. Like most fathers and 
sons, they just chose to move on. 

“Don't worry about it Bob, I will just air the car out when I get home,”
my grandfather said softly as my dad threw the salt pebbles out of the 
back of the trunk. “I'll probably be dead by the time it rusts out 
anyway,” my grandfather joked. 

After a few moments, my father began to calm down. And then after
repositioning the water softener, we closed the trunk. 

As the sun began to go down, we went back into the cottage one last time
before we were to take the two hour drive back to Pittsburgh. With 
plastic covers on all the furniture placed by my grandmother the week 
before, we began looking for any tools we left behind and checked to 
make sure all the windows and doors were closed. 

Even though the cottage had scared me as a small child when I would stay
a week or so with my father's parents in the summer, my feelings about 
the cottage had changed especially as I got older. And while I did not 
stay in this cottage as much as my cousin or my father and his sisters 
did when they were children, I felt a sense of nostalgia not for 
myself, but for my family. This was the place that brought all of them 
joy and gave them consistency even during the difficult years and 
family hardships. 

With my grandfather and my father inside the cottage, I stayed on the
porch and helped adjust the cover on my grandmother's porch swing which 
she put on backwards. But inside, I could hear my father and 
grandfather talking. Though, I am sure once again my grandfather 
thought no one else could hear him besides my dad. 

“You know Bob, I think this will be the last time we will be doing
this,” my grandfather said as I could hear him sitting in his old green 
leather chair as my dad placed a new lock on the door. 

While we all knew that my grandparents were planning to sell the cottage
because it was getting to hard for them to take care of it and because 
it was hard for anyone in our family to find time to use it, there was 
just a sense of sadness in knowing this would be the last time the 
three of us would be closing up the cottage for the winter. 

“Your mother is pretty upset about all this, especially since it
belonged to her father, but we all know it's for best,” my grandfather 
said. 

“Well, we had a lot of good memories here, memories that we can't take
away,” my father replied as I could hear him testing out the new lock. 

But then I heard him tell my dad something I will never forget. 

“I know I wasn't that best of a father to you and your sisters when you
were younger, and I am sorry for that. But you have accomplished 
something in your life because you raised two wonderful children and I 
should give you credit for that. You were a better father to your 
children than I was to you. 

Suddenly my heart dropped. My grandfather, the Army major who had never
really shown his emotion or his feelings (to me at least), took me by 
surprise. And if my heart had dropped, I couldn't imagine what my 
father had felt. 

“Well, they are good kids and their mother should take a lot of the
credit too,” my father said simply as the sound of the lock testing 
continued. 

“Well, you have a great wife too. I never really understood her, but she
is a great mother to your children,” my grandfather said. 

Quietly, I found myself slipping out of the porch door as to make the
impression that I did not hear the conversation between my father and 
grandfather. But I could not help but notice my dad's face as he walked 
out of the cottage in front of my grandfather who was closing the door 
of the cottage behind him. 

And as the sun set on the lake with the red, orange, and yellow leaves
falling onto the road, we sat in silence in the car which smelled of 
salt pebbles. But for the first time I saw a sense of peace over my dad 
as he finally heard his father apologize for all those years of 
hardships, knowing that forgiving him was the right thing to do. And in 
my grandfather's eyes I saw a man who was so proud of his only son. 

Copyright © 2011 Christopher L. Schilling


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