Eskimo

This is a portrait of our dad, Ben Roffe.  It was drawn in 1940 by his bosom buddy, Bay Kaufman and he would have been twenty-one years old.

Before Pearl Harbor.

Before he met our mother.

Before he dreamt of me or my brother, Kenny.

He was quite a guy, and today on Father’s Day, Dear Readers, I wanted to share a fond memory with you.

Do you know the AA parable about the Eskimo?

It seems that a man was trapped in a blinding snow storm in the Arctic.  He had to abandon his vehicle and start to make an impossible trek in the frigid temperatures and thick snow to find shelter.

As he fought his way through the terrible blizzard he called upon the Lord to save him.

He recounted this tale to his spell-bound audience.

“I called out to the Lord to rescue me and I got no answer,” he said.  “I prayed and prayed as hard as I could but the snow never stopped and my path wasn’t miraculously cleared.  I promised that I would never again doubt the existence of the Lord if He would just save me.”

“But no matter how hard I prayed, nothing happened.  And that’s why I don’t believe in the Almighty.”

“Well, what finally saved you?” asked one of his audience.

“Aw, all of a sudden, some Eskimo showed up and dog-sledded me to camp.”

I’ve always love this story and it struck home one day about six years ago.

Not in the Arctic, though.

In Highland Park.

You see at the end of his life, my dad was confined to a bed and a wheelchair. Four years of dialysis had beaten the crap out of him and he was too weak to walk any more.

Even though he has a weird look on his face in this photo, my dad never complained.  He accepted his lot with grace and humor and always felt that he was the luckiest guy on earth.

He never asked for anything- except hot sauce. He didn’t like the bland nursing home food and thus Kenny and I had to make sure his supply never ran out.

And we never did.

But Kenny and I also had to take him to his dentist in Highland Park.

Trust me.  This was a two person job.

One to drive and park.  One to get the patient to the dentist office.

Kenny was the designated driver. I was charged with getting Dad up to the dentist’s office where we could them somehow maneuver him out of the wheel chair and into the dental chair.

His dentist was located here.  Port Clinton in downtown Highland Park.

And as you can see, the little mall has many levels.

But we had taken him there before and Kenny wasn’t worried by the logistics.

“I’ll drop you off and you get him up to the office.  I’ll park and meet you up there,” he directed.

“Roger, will do,” I replied as we both struggled to help him out of Kenny’s SUV and into the chair.

And then Kenny took off.

Except that he somehow had dropped me at the wrong end of the mall and there were NO ELEVATORS.

Just steps.  Like five of them

It might as well have been K2.

For the life of me, I could not figure out how to get Dad and his chair up the steps that led to the landing.  But as I was reaching for my phone to S.O.S. Kenny, a man appeared.

He looked just like this.

“Can I be of help?” he asked politely.

“I can’t get my dad up these steps,” I said tearfully.  “And I don’t want him to miss his appointment.”

“No problem,” he said with a smile.

And he effortlessly lifted my dad- and the wheelchair – up the steps.

I was grateful.  And my dad enjoyed the ride.

So on this Father’s Day, Dear Readers, I wish you all a very joyous holiday.

And blessings from the Almighty who sends you just the right Eskimo when you need him the most.

And now a clip of one of the best daddy/daughter movies of all time…