I was asked one time, perhaps seriously, if I was a Stoic. Since stoicism is a philosophy that says we should be grateful for our lives and not be concerned about things we can’t change, I said, “Definitely, maybe.” I’d never given the ancient Greeks a lot of thought. I figured that whatever attitude I had was more because I was my father’s son.

My brothers and I learned lessons from both of our parents. From our mother, we learned to love words, especially those on the printed page and between hard covers. We learned to treat people with respect and dignity. Finally, we learned from her how to die with grace.

There were other, but no less impactful lessons we learned from Dad. He spent time trying to teach us to be athletes; he was a good and fervent baseball player. With me, at least, those lessons were far less productive than he wanted them to be. He also showed us what it really meant to be a man, to shoulder his responsibilities and care for his family. However, the lesson I remembered this morning was probably as important as any other: You play the hand you’re dealt.

Daddy was not a complainer, a griper, or a whiner, although there were times in his life when he had ever right to be. He had been forced to leave high school during his senior year to help support his family. Grandmother and Granddaddy had ten children, and at one point, Daddy was the only one with a job. He was drafted when he was 31, an old man in the crowd of teenagers and early twenty-somethings that were being called up. And he spent most of his life doing a job that he wasn’t that fond of. My brothers and I know that because of he frequently encouraged us to get an engineering degree. (As with baseball, his efforts didn’t have the desired effect; he got two English majors and an art major.)  I think Dad felt that his life would have been much fuller if he could have completed high school, then gone to college on the GI Bill. I think he’d have been a good engineer.

But we didn’t hear that from him. We didn’t hear what could have been, what should have been, or what he wanted it to be. He got up and went to work, and showed us what being a man meant, without strut or brag or bullying. He had been dealt a hand, and he played it to the very best of his ability.

And that may be the greatest lesson he taught us. We are not guaranteed riches or health or happiness in this life. We are, on the other hand, pretty much guaranteed our share of sadness and loss. Most of us will sometimes fail. That’s not the lesson. The lesson is in how we deal with that.

In Candide, Pangloss holds that this is the best of all possible worlds, even after losing body parts and having any number of other misadventures. Dickens, on the other hand, is full of characters wandering around looking for someone to blame their difficulties on. (It’s satisfying that Dickens deals properly with all of the complainers in the end.) Neither of these attitudes is useful. Delusion leads us to bad decisions; blaming prevents us from getting better and more capable. I believe the only really useful attitude is the one Daddy demonstrated. This is who I am. This is what I have. And this is what I must do. Then doing it.

Dad died young, and I don’t know how much his absorbing responsibilities without complaint contributed to that. Perhaps if he had vented more, he would have lived longer. But that was not his way.

A person’s life is not measured in years of existence, but in the impact of what he or she leaves behind. By that measure, Dad did himself, his family, and fatherhood proud.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad.