My Father, The Teacher.
Written by Christiane Russo
I will never forget that summer day out on the Chesapeake Bay with my family, specifically, my dad and my son. My dad had taken our family out for a day sail on his sailboat in August… it could have been the calmest day I have ever seen. Not a ripple on the water for as far as you could see. For someone on a sailboat, that isn’t good. I’ll never forget it. It felt like something out of a movie.
There was my dad, listening and watching my son who was trying to figure out how to move the sail and all its rigging so we could possibly squeeze a knot(speed) or two out of the wind by adjusting the jib. They were both looking up at something at the top of the mast, trying to figure out the direction of the wind. My dad was letting Peter pull on the rigging and moving the wheel this direction and that. If my dad was letting Peter call the shots, I knew that meant Peter has done something to earn it.
Peter, my son, had gone to a week-long sailing camp earlier that summer with his cousins so he knew a lot more about how sailboats worked than I do now. I won’t try to tell you what was being said because my love of sailing is as a passenger, but this moment hit me like a ton of bricks. I was seeing a moment my father had been hoping for, maybe all his life. I watched Peter’s face and realized he loved sailing. I watched my dad’s face as he tried to hide a smile. Was my dad holding back tears like me? A family thread was being lengthened, a life bond, as they spoke in the middle of the quiet bay and I just wanted to stay in this moment forever. All those years of bringing his three daughters to the boat to either work on it or take it out on the water had finally paid off for the family. My dad had passed on the love of sailing to his daughters but ultimately the knowledge and art of how to sail to his grandson. My husband and I had been bringing our four kids sailing almost every year since they were six months. Peter is almost sixteen now and a good mix of my dad’s and my husband’s temperaments. However, this moment had been in the making far before my son, me or my sisters.
The family love of sailing started with my grandfather, my dad’s father. Grandpa Kittka had learned to sail when my dad was a kid. Grandpa Kittka had taken sailing lessons and then the family had done a chartered week-long trip on a rented sailboat around the Chesapeake Bay. This then had led to sailing races on the weekend as a family which included camping by the lake. Grandma Kittka stayed in the camper and prepared all the meals for her husband and three boys. Grandpa Kittka had even fell off the boat once during a race! Could you imagine the excitement for my dad and two uncles who had to save their dad and still try to win the race? Thank goodness, grandpa put in all that effort and then, thank goodness, my father put in the same if not more effort to continue to teach a hobby which has now become part of our family.
I felt like I had a glimpse into how my son’s motivation works. Teaching your children something new doesn’t mean they will love it. They have to put in the work, fail, and make it their own in order to love it. I learned that about Peter and how different boys learn that day. I have to let him try on his own and not intervene, let him fail and try again or he will never love it and make it his own. Its very important to me that Peter makes life his own so why don’t I let him? My father taught me that. Now every time I ask Peter if he would mind helping Cappie on the boat, he tries to hide a smile and says “ Sure, I don’t mind”. I wonder if he is thinking of that August day with Cappie because I know I am. All the thanks to Grandpa Kittka for learning something new midway thru life. I guess, for the sake of family, you might never be too old to try something new sometimes. I leave you with this quote to contemplate:
“One may stand perplexed before some thought, especially seeing men sin, asking oneself, shall I take it by force or by humble love? Always resolve to take it by humble love. If you so resolve once and for all, you will be able to overcome the whole world. A loving humility is a terrible power, the powerful of all. Nothing compares with it. Brothers, love is a teacher, but one must know how to acquire it for it is difficult to acquire. It is dearly bought by long work over a long time. For one ought to love, not for a chance moment, but for all time. Active love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with everyone watching. Indeed, it will go as far as the giving even of one’s life, provided it does not take long, but is soon over as on stage and everyone is looking on and praising. Whereas active love is labor and perseverance, and for some people, perhaps a whole science.” – From the book The Brothers Karamazov
Christiane Russo
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