Blog Archives - trish hermanson

The Father I Don't Know

6/14/2019

I’m the blondie in the stroller with my sister, pushed by the father I don’t know.
     Early one morning my mom came into my sister’s and my bedroom with red eyes. She handed us tiny cups of grape juice and quietly announced, “Daddy’s in Heaven with Jesus.”
   The night before at age thirty-nine, he’d slumped over from a sudden sharp headache and died. A brain aneurism, we think.    Ask me my age then, and I would have held up five fingers.
     Ask me today how many memories I have of Daddy, and I’ll hold up four fingers - staring at the back of his head from the back seat of the car as he drove; burying my hand in his giant palm as he walked me to kindergarten where he was the principal; running to his school office to get a bandaid when I fell and scraped my knee; and wrestling with him at night until I collapsed with giggles.
That's it.
      I’ve studied photos of him in his college football gear. Read romantic letters he wrote my mom from a sub chaser during World War II. And watched home videos where he flashes his wide grin.    But honestly, I don’t know him.
      So I’m throwing out a challenge to you who still have your dad. Sit with him and look through old photos. Watch home videos together. Call him and ask questions, questions, and more questions about his growing up, his dreams, his career.
     You may discover a father you never knew.

How to Fall Forward Like My Friend Victoria

6/7/2019

My friend Victoria showed me that when we fall, whether from our failures or things others inflict upon us, we don’t have to fall back. We can fall forward.
     Even through tough times, Victoria’s stock response was “it could be worse.” And she endured tough times: hiding under the kitchen table when Nazi bombs rained upon England during World War II, a hardscrabble upbringing in Liverpool, the death of a husband, raising kids on her own, a foreclosure, and a brain injury when a truck hit her.
  Her attitude that life is an adventure kept her moving forward as she threw herself into various careers. Some brought in bread, some busted. At one point, Victoria was so broke she lived off of canned tuna and “gutter apples” she scrounged. But she heeded the words of her hero Winston Churchill to “never give up.”
     When her hip went bad, she moved in with us, crawling up the stairs until she regained her health. Yet when I was down about something, she’d brew a cup of proper tea, remind me “you gotta laugh,” and regale me with stories.
     In recent years she’d gone from surviving to thriving through her blog, Honey for Your Soul. Hundreds responded to her life-giving encouragement. Her final tweet: “Never quit! Keep asking, seeking, knocking!”
     Then a heart attack. The finish line. And this time when she fell, she landed in the arms of Jesus.
     The best fall forward. Ever.

Painting by Kerolos Safwat

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