Sunday, June 21, 2015

Lessons From My Father


In honor of Father’s Day, I thought I’d share some of the best lessons I have learned from mine. My sisters, brother and I are truly blessed to call him Dad.

God is Great and the Golden Rule is the Sum of All Wisdom. My Father taught me about my Heavenly Father.  We were a family absolutely rooted in faith and a constant devotion to God.  He modeled HIS greatest commandment after Jesus' - honor God and treat others how you would like to be treated. Imagine what the world would be like if everyone lived this way.  The Golden Rule was the one principal my father’s mother taught him above all things and he has passed it along to his own children and we pass it to ours. Such a simple but powerful concept.

Remember Who You Are. He told me this every time I left the house as a kid. He instilled in me a great love for and pride in the Peirolo name. Being a Peirolo, he said, was a blessing but also a great responsibility. We owed it to our family members – past and present – to honor the family name. But when he told me that, he was basically saying “You are loved. Don’t settle for anything less than the dignity and respect that you deserve.” And this is my father’s greatest legacy – LOVE.  There has not been a single day in my life when I didn’t feel loved by him – even when I got suspended by Sister Laura for a rude hand gesture (I was innocent!) in the 8th grade. That day, however, I DID get what I fondly refer to now as the dragging-the-Peirolo-name-through-the-mud speech.

Gnats and Elephants. In life there are gnats and elephants. Seriously… only get upset over the elephants and, by the way, there are hardly any elephants. This was basically his version of “don’t sweat the small stuff” – long before that book ever came out.

Your Mother is Everything. I remember once or twice trying to play my mother against my father to get my way. My father sat me down and said in no uncertain terms – “In a contest between you and your mother, you lose every time. She is everything in this family and you will show her the utmost love and respect or you will deal with me.” And trust me when I say, that would NOT have been pleasant.  Abraham Lincoln once said “The greatest gift a father can give to his children is to love their mother.” That was one of my dad’s greatest gifts to us.

Stand Up for What’s Right. We live in a very grey and murky world but there are things that are black and white – right and wrong. Stand up for what you know is right. And if you see someone doing something that is wrong and you don’t tell them, you’re just as wrong as they are. Choose your battles wisely but always know that there ARE things worth fighting for.

Family Trumps All. Friends are wonderful and bring so much to your life. But family ties are the ones that bind. There is something very wonderful about common bloodlines, a shared heritage, a common faith.  It is our history. And to paraphrase Michael Corleone… Don’t take sides with anyone against the family. Ever.

Money means little. Character is King. My father could have made lots of money and gotten much glory in the private sector but instead devoted his life to serving his country in the Air Force for over 30 years; and then serving the public sector again as a high school teacher. Now he volunteers at the Air Force Museum in his retirement.  Money has never meant much to my father. You can be exceedingly wealthy with beautiful homes and the most expensive toys, but if you don’t have integrity and treat people with dignity and kindness, you’re not worth much.

And one of my personal favorites (and this was for all females):

Don’t date someone better looking than you. Sounds silly – but trust me – it’s sage advice. :)

I thank God for putting me exactly in this time and in this family and for blessing me with a father who is everything that is good and true and noble. I will carry his lessons and his love and his legacy in my heart no matter where I go - always.  Happy Father's Day!