In honor of Father’s Day, I’m celebrating all dads and would like to share the Lessons I Learned From Dad.

You could’ve called my Dad an ordinary man. He didn’t come from royal bloodlines and wasn’t a town leader or famous athlete or a super star.

He was Dad.

Those three little letters, D-A-D, represented the world in a small child’s eyes. My eyes.

An ordinary man committed to providing for and supporting his family. He didn’t have hobbies. Sure, he enjoyed a cold beer and an NFL football game. But his family was his life.

He was a humble man at heart. Unaware of how much goodness and strength he’d instilled in his children. I doubt he realized the life lessons he taught us without meaning to. The life lessons, we caught and understood from his daily actions. How he distinguished right from wrong and the essence of being an honorable, tolerant, forgiving human being. I want to share a few lessons I learned from Dad.

Lesson One

You can do anything just because you are YOU!

Everything you need to succeed is already inside of you. I can remember asking Dad if he thought that I could do something. His reply was always, “Of course, you can. You’re an Armstrong. You can do anything.”

He breathed belief into his kids by making them proud of their last name. Proud of the stock they came from. The words, “Of course, you can,” flowed out of him with enough sincerity and conviction that you knew deep down in your heart that they were true.

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Lesson Two

People can only tear you down, if you let them.

Like every little kid, I went to my dad with my scrapes and bruises. Some of the hardest scrapes and scars to fix are the ones that happen in our heart, or within our mind. I would come to my dad with those too. Sometimes, he told me to toughen up. Mostly, he told me, “Don’t let them beat you. They can only win if you let them.”

He told me things like, “It’s going to be okay. You’re tougher than you think.” And my favorite, “Don’t worry, they can’t eat you. Only the IRS can eat you.”

The underlying message was always the same. You can do it.

Lesson Three

See the possibilities within everyday situations by seeing what is possible when no one else can.

My dad worked in construction for over fifty years. He built amazing things. From  hospitals, to high schools, to hotels, to homes. He could look at a broken building or barren strip of land and see possibilities. I’d watch and think, “You’re not going to fix that.” And the project would take shape and grow into a finished product.

He was the guy they called in when a job had gone horribly wrong or was not going to finish on time. When it was high pressure, and millions of dollars on the line if a hotel didn’t open in time, Dad was your man. He always came through.

He was a make-a-way, find-a-way kind of man. He saw the possibilities and offered solutions when others only saw failure. He passed that skill down to his children. Especially his boys, who have gone on to build great things also.

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Lesson Four

No matter what, your family loves and believes in you.

I’m not sure how I know this. I cannot place my finger on what my parents said to make me hold this as a fact. But I know in my heart, if I had to, I could’ve always gone home if things got bad.

At the same time, there have been times when I have wanted to go home, lick my wounds and stay within the safe comfort of my parents’ home but my dad said no.

He told me to stay, face my situation, stick with it or fight for what was right. Those were some of the hardest times for me. I know it was hard for my dad to tell me no, but those situations were also growing times for me.

One of those times, I was twenty-two, six months pregnant and alone in Germany. My husband was deployed to the Middle East and the Army didn’t give a date for his return.

I wanted to go home. I remember calling my dad and crying to him over the phone. Telling him, “I can’t do it. I can’t handle being alone. I’m scared. I don’t want to have this baby on my own.”

He replied in that slow, easy way of his. His voice full of love but not allowing for doubt. “Dee Ann,” he told me, “You’re going to have this baby. There’s no going back on that.” He chuckled. Not a funny ha-ha chuckle but a good natured, everything will be okay chuckle that I can still hear. His voice turned fatherly-firm and he added, “But you can do this. You need to be there in case your husband comes home.”

I stayed. An ocean away from family. It was hard. It was lonely.

My husband came home. Two weeks before our little girl was born. If I had taken the easy way and gone home to Colorado, my husband and I wouldn’t have been together for the birth of our first child.

I’m thankful for Dad’s advice.

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Lesson Five

Sometimes people do not like you when you make them stretch and grow out of their comfort zone.

Growing up, I thought my dad was wonderful. He was kind and loving. Who wouldn’t like him?

I remember visiting one of my dad’s jobs in Vail, Colorado. He was building a hotel. A big, beautiful hotel located at the base of the mountain. Skiers would be able to ski down the slope right to their hotel room.

In my eyes, it was a big deal and my dad was making it possible. On every job site the only bathroom was a Port-a-potty. Not a big deal. This time, I went into the Port-a-potty and came out with an education.

On the walls inside people wrote what they thought of my dad by using four letter words and vocabulary I shouldn’t have understood. I ran out shouting, “Dad, Dad, you won’t believe what it says about you on the walls of the Port-a-potty. It’s not nice.”

Dad laughed. He walked with me, slowing his gate to match my smaller stride. “Dee Ann,” he told me, “sometimes people don’t want to hear that they have to do it again or do it right. They get upset when I tell them to fix things. Don’t worry about it.”

He brushed his huge hand across my head. Laughed and walked away to an elevator shaft with his voice booming out commands. I watched as my dad—decades older than any man on his crew and a hip that couldn’t bend—climbed into that shaft.

In front of me, stood two workers watching. One told the other that he wouldn’t go in there. Too dangerous.

My heart shifted into overdrive. I held my breath. I watched. I waited to see if my father would be okay.

My father held onto the edge of the of the shaft, leaned into the empty hole and evaluated the situation. Together, the men and my dad figured out how to make the elevator work. He didn’t have to climb in to help. He was the boss. But he did.

As an adult, I realize my dad knew what was written in the Port-a-potty. He used it everyday. He didn’t let it change how he viewed his crew. He worked along side his men and completed the job the right way and on time.

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Lesson Six

Anything worth doing is worth doing right. Even the little jobs, the ones you think don’t matter. Those jobs are the most important because YOU will know if you did it right or not.

All the kids in my family helped on my Dad’s jobs. Some of us were more skilled than others. I was always on clean up crew or in the office. No job was too small to Dad. Every job was important and his kids started with the grunt work and worked their way up.

Grunt work was my specialty when I was younger. My dad handed me a broom or vacuum, a rag and a razor blade and told me to get to work.

I used the razor blade to remove excess caulk or paint from the windows. I cleaned up and made sure the job shined. Dad would inspect behind me, telling me, like he told everyone else, where to fix it and how to do it better.

On one job, the vacuum and I became best buddies. I named the vacuum Freddy. With Freddy in tow, I sucked up dirt and sheetrock dust. I picked up trash, cleaned and washed windows. I learned how to pay attention to details. Everyday, Dad drove me home and I climbed into bed exhausted. I kept at it under my dad’s watchful eye with a typical teenager attitude. Rolling my eyes at how unimportant my job was. Who would really notice if there was a little paint on the windows?

Until the day my dad’s boss walked through the job.

The boss praised me on how clean the job site looked and what a great job did. My dad smiled and said, “That’s my daughter.”

The boss replied, “Of course she is, Dale. I should’ve known.”

That day, I learned how important it was to do your best. That day, I learned how my actions reflected on my family. That day, I felt my dad’s pride wash over me.

How different that memory would be if I didn’t give it may all, if my dad hadn’t inspected what he expected from me.

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Lesson Seven

Be truthful and honest with people. Even when they don’t want to hear it. Even if it will hurt the one you love.

Dad was a great guy. You knew where you stood with dad. If you messed up, he’d tell you. To him, all men and women were created equal.

One time, Dad was called in to meet with the big bosses. He didn’t put on a suit or his best jeans. He’d walk with his distinctive gait into a fancy boardroom wearing his work boots, faded Levis and a work shirt over his Hanes white t-shirt. His hip didn’t bend, so he would sit crooked in his chair, slightly angled back.

The boss asked questions. The heads of the other jobs wanted to please their boss and gave the answers they thought he wanted.

Dad remained quiet.

After everyone had their say, the boss asked, “So, what do you think, Dale?”

My dad never minced words. He said it how he saw it, whether it was what the boss wanted to hear or not. He knew it was what the boss needed to hear to finish the job. Because of Dad’s honesty and straight answers, the Boss realized he could trust him. And that trust turned into a life long friendship.

As an adult, I learned to never call Dad unless you wanted the bare truth. If you wanted things sugar coated he was not the one to ask. In exchange, I valued his opinion. I knew he’d tell it to me straight and then I could make my own decisions with his input.

Lesson Eight

Always have a place to think.

Dad had his garage. The large metal structure was his place to detox, have time to himself or to think. It was his domain and his world. A place where he could contemplate or just be.

As a child, his garage was a quiet place for me to talk to him about my problems. He never criticized. He’d say, “You think so, Dee Ann?” Then he would state how he felt. He didn’t argue his point. He let me come to a conclusion on my own.

As time went on and I grew into an adult, I had adult decisions to make. Then Dad started to say, “I can’t answer that for you. You’ll have to make that decision on your own.” He knew I’d have to live with the consequences of my decisions. I learned to have a place to think.

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Lesson Nine

Never speak badly about your spouse and never allow your children to speak badly about their mother to you.

When my dad spoke the words, “To love, honor and cherish till death do us part” he meant those words. He made a sacred oath to his wife, himself and to God. He showed me that if you love someone, you love all of them, the good and the bad.

Let me clarify. If you’re in an abusive marriage, my dad wouldn’t have told you to stay. He would’ve helped you.

I could come to my dad about anything, except to criticize my mother. I remember coming to my dad once in my teen years full of anger and self-importance. Telling him how wrong my mother was. How she didn’t know anything. He shut me down mid-sentence. He didn’t have time for that kind of talk. He sent me on my way, my ears ringing from the heat in his words.

My dad wasn’t a man of many words until it came to defending his wife. My parents were a united front, a team. I learned that marriage is a team effort with give and take on both sides. My parents celebrated fifty-five years of marriage before my father passed.

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Lesson Ten

The greatest lesson I learned was perseverance.

My dad had Perthes Disease as a child. He was diagnosed in the third grade and missed the last two weeks of school. The bones in his hip dissolved and he had an operation in which the doctors chipped part of the bone out of his right leg and placed that bone and a pin in his left hip.

Once he left the hospital, he spent a year in a body cast. Spent almost all of fourth grade in bed. His mother used to take old irons and hang them off his foot to help straighten his legs. This was in the Forties.

He missed two years of school. His mother home schooled him and a teacher came in to give him tests. He was remembered by Dr. Hall, as the patient who never complained.

When my dad was thirteen, his father wasn’t feeling well and returned from doctor visit. The plan was, his father would change out of his work clothes and return to the hospital for more tests.

His father sat down on the couch to talk with him. In the middle of their conversation, his father had a massive stroke. A blood clot had worked its way up to his brain. His father passed away before help could arrive.

When I was in the fourth grade, my dad worked on a construction site in Wyoming. He was unloading sheetrock from a truck. The wind caught the sheetrock and slammed it against his head and neck. He was partly paralyzed on the right side.

He had a wife and five children to support. My mom worked but her income wasn’t enough. He subsidized their income by trucking water until he regained control of the movement on his right side. For the rest of his life, on an almost daily basis, he suffered from migraines.

I always found comfort in walking with my dad. His slowed gate, the way his body swayed. My dad walked with a limp and his foot had completely turned inward so that he walked on the outside of his foot instead of the bottom. He had to send his work boots out to be built up to enable him to walk. He didn’t care, he always showed me his ‘spiffy’ new shoes.

Some people might have considered my dad handicapped. Not him or his family.

I never heard my dad complain, he always said, “That’s just the way it was.”

So, I’ve changed my mind. My dad was an extra-ordinary man. An extraordinary man, who kept moving forward no matter what life dealt him. To me he was a king, the leader of our family, an athlete who conquered injuries and a super star on the stage of my life.

Today, I realize how extremely blessed I was to be able to pick up a phone and call him anytime I wanted. When we ended our conversations he would tell me, “I love you.” Three simple words that warmed a heart.

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And the final lesson.

Always tell your children I love you before saying goodbye.

I hope you enjoyed, Lessons I learned from Dad. What lessons did you learn from your dad? Or what lessons are you handing down to your children?

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