For the Love of Dad

Posted June 15, 2011

Clockwise from top left: Susan Edwards learned leadership from her dad. Belinda Mizell’s father, an outnumbeded gator, taught her about humor. Vicki Yackel’s dad was always proud of his children. Julie White’s father (whose modest shoes are also pictured) lived a simple life with a higher focus.

FOR SOME OF US, June is a time to scramble for gifts to offer Dad. For others, it provides an occasion to reflect on all the gifts our dads gave us through the years.

When Susan Edwards thinks of the best gift her father ever gave her, it has nothing to do with toys, dolls, or anything tangible. It was the gift of responsibility.

“My dad taught me to be a leader,” says Susan, of Stockbridge, Ga.

She recalls that when she made mistakes, her father didn’t actually punish her, though she thinks that a punishment would have been easier to take. Instead, he took time to make sure she understood the difference between good choices and bad ones.

“I still remember one time when I missed my curfew,” she says. “I had gone out with a girlfriend and planned to take my own car, but ended up riding in hers. Then, when it was time for me to be home, she wasn’t ready to leave.

“Later I tried to explain to my father that I was late because my friend wouldn’t drive me home. He asked if it was my friend’s responsibility or mine for me to be home on time, and of course, I knew it was mine. Knowing I had messed up was worse than any punishment he could have given.”

It was one of many lessons her father taught her that Susan believes has served her well. When she moved back home at 18, after a brief stint living on her own, she paid rent to her parents, only to have it all returned when she was ready to move out for real. (As an adult, she’s done the same with her nieces who’ve come to live with her, accepting their “rent” money to help them learn to pay their own way but ultimately giving it back.)

“My dad made me the person that I am,” she says. “We have a bond that can never be broken, and I love him more and more each day.”

SUSAN EDWARDS is an associate with Regions Bank in Stockbridge, Ga.

Belinda Mizell of Tallahassee, Fla., figures that having a good sense of humor must be a Mizell family trait. That’s the only way to explain a story that appeared in the sports section of the Orlando Sentinel several years back. A reporter spotted her dad “dressed from head to toe in the Florida Gators signature orange and blue — with the one-of-a-kind Gators cap her mom had made him — sitting in a sea of garnet-and-gold Florida-State Seminole fans.”

“My dad will talk to anyone,” Belinda continues, “so when the reporter asked him what he was doing there in the middle of Seminole country, he was happy to share.”

In truth, his children are Seminole fans by choice, though that’s not what he told the reporter. “My children couldn’t pass the entrance exam to get into Florida,” he said with a straight face. He stated his identity as Joe Mizell of Possumtrot, Fla, a town he’d invented. (Belinda later created a handmade sign for her parents’ house, reading “Possumtrot, Fla.: Population 2.”) It was all printed in the newspaper, accompanied by a picture of Joe dressed in orange and blue and smoking a cigar.

A career Army man with four children, Joe was often away serving on tours in Vietnam and Korea. Belinda and her siblings have cherished having him around since his retirement, despite their collegiate rivalries. He has served as mayor of Destin, Fla., restored a number of valuable sports cars, and continued to tease his children with the Mizell family humor.

“He calls me ‘Biscuit,’” Belinda says, “and he’s always given my friends nicknames, too. One is an electrician, and he calls him Short Circuit. He’s just like that.”

BELINDA MIZELL is an associate with Regions Bank in Tallahassee, Fla.

It says a lot about Vicki Yackel’s relationship with her father that even as she watched him suffer through the latter stages of Alzheimer’s disease, they continued to share a special bond.

Vicki, who lives in Birmingham, Ala., recalls the time she spent at his bedside during his last hospital stay. “Between his failing eyesight and faded memory, he seemed to have no idea I was sitting across from him. But I engaged him in conversation the same way that any acquaintance would. I asked him how many children he had. He told me that he had three sons, when actually, he had three daughters. Then he remembered: “They’re girls,” he said. “I have three girls.”

“About that time a big smile came across his face, and that twinkle I had missed so much came back into his eye,” she continues. “He began telling me about his girls and how proud he was of them. I will always cherish the joy I experienced during that conversation with my father.”

Vicki says she always encourages others whose family members suffer from Alzheimer’s too, “Look for those little joys as they happen. Ironically, it was my dad who taught me to do that: No matter how dark it might be, there is always a light.”

Vicki’s father passed nearly four years ago, but, “The impact that he has on my day-to-day life,” she says, “is still very much present.”

VICKI YACKEL is an associate with Regions.

When Julie White’s father passed away in January, one moment in particular seemed to encapsulate her sense of who he was and what she had learned from him: Material things are just not that important.

“We were going through his things, and I found his dress shoes,” Julie, of Mountain Brook, Ala., recalls. “My mother told me they were the shoes he wore at their wedding 50 years ago. They still looked new. He was a farmer all of his life—cotton, soybeans, cattle—and he never needed dress shoes.

“That’s the kind of man he was,” she says. “If he didn’t need it, he didn’t buy it. So I understand a lot when I look at his shoes. Life isn’t about things. We need to focus on what really matters: Family, faith and doing good for others.”

She says losing her father, who died from complications from a stroke, gave her a new perspective on him and the wisdom his life had to offer. She keeps his “dress” shoes as a symbol of her father’s frugality and focus in life. “He didn’t spend money if he didn’t need to, which is a valuable lesson,” she says. “It’s the same reason I’m keeping his Timex watch. No Rolex for him. His simple Timex served him perfectly well.”

JULIE WHITE banks with Regions in Birmingham, Ala. [“A Good Year” Story Contest Winner]

Everyone has a story.