My Father: James Lon Fiala

My father is an angel among the angels. A romantic notion I know. I fought for years to reconcile my feelings about his death. I raged at God. I raged at my father. I raged at my mother. Hell, I was screaming at anyone who crossed my path or would listen. I questioned God's love and my father's love. My anger boiled over in tantrum. How could they take themselves away from me and my brothers and sisters? How could they leave my mother alone to raise five children? How could they leave me alone in this world?

Then one day another angel helped me see. Fact. My father died. The rest? I created. I made it up. I made his death mean: I was alone, that God wasn't there for me, that my father didn't love me. I chose to give life to these untruths, living as if they were true. Tears flowed long and hard when I realized the years I had spent judging and blaming God, my father, and the world; because of a story I had created. I ask forgiveness of everyone my anger flowed over.

I know today that God and my father, love me and watch over me.

I am blessed to have had a father who shared himself with me while he was here. My conscious memories are dim, perhaps repressed because of the abrupt way he left the earth. What I am very clear about, is the example that he set for me. He was a gentle man whose love for my mother was apparent to even a 11 year old. His love for his children was demonstrated in the time he spent with them.

His workshop in the basement was my favorite place to spend time with him. Watching, yearning and eventually learning to use a carpenters tools. He always had a project to work on, most practical, some purely for the joy of it. I still remember the balsa and tissue paper hovercraft he built from a plan in Popular Mechanics. It worked. Rubber Band guns were another big hit. The rubber bands were massive, cut from inner tubes of car tires.

Watching my father, I was convinced that Do-It-Yourself was the only way to get anything done, and if you could scrounge for the materials, even better. I suspect that had more to do with financial realities than preference. I remember trips to find large rocks for the Rock Garden and stairway we built. Building the forms, mixing and pouring the cement. Construction experienced in our back yard. Though the contributions of 8 and 9 year olds were probably pretty limited, it always felt like “we” built it.

He worked as a safety engineer for Liberty Mutual. Somehow in my 11 year old mind, that means he knew where to get great deals on stuff like fiberglass canoes that had snapped in half when someone tried to steal them. He brought the pieces home and put them back together with a new layer of fiberglass (or two), making us the proud owners of the heaviest fiberglass canoe in the world. After determining that even with the help of both his strapping sons, lifting the canoe, let alone managing a portage was going to be difficult. The heaviest two wheeled, two-by-four canoe carrier in the world was fabricated, and we were off to the lake at the bottom of our street for our maiden voyage.

My father's love for the water is something I share. He had a unique way of teaching us though. The first time we took the canoe out, the first lesson we learned was what to do if the canoe capsized.... by capsizing the canoe. The first time we took out our Class E sail boat (another salvage project) we were taught what to do in the event it capsized... by dumping it over with full sails. I'm sure someone was having fun; but it wasn't this kid, who was frightened of everything. What was the lesson exactly? Boats eventually capsize? As my fear dissipated over the years, I remember the sense of accomplishment after righting the boats, and better yet, being in them again, rather than treading water and hanging on to the side for dear life. Experience is mastery; I'm comfortable in water to this day, and seek its solace regularly.

Our house in New Hope, had a walk out basement. This facilitated moving projects in and out of our basement workshop to the back yard. It also made it very convenient when my father decided to create an ice skating rink in our backyard one winter. Snow was shoveled, a hose connected to the laundry sink and water flowed. Voila! Ice rink. I can't prove it, but I'll bet we were the only people with an ice rink in our back yard for at least a couple of blocks... it was Minnesota after all.

I've toured taconite mines in northern Minnesota with my father, and trekked through mud, to walk inside the newly constructed cooling towers of massive energy plants. These were business trips for my father and he included my brother and me. His fascination with the great engineering feats of man, were brought home to his family every time we detoured on a car trip when a sign announced “So and So Dam, 10 miles.” I'm pretty sure they weren't detours; the experience was shared, lesson learned. I have stopped often in my travels to view the dam, the bridge, the building; and I know my father is with me.

I search for a sense, an essence of my father to share with you. What I have, is the experience of a man who shared time with his family. Who's love for my mother and his children was palpable. I also have a sense of a man struggling with himself at times. His frustration always seemed inner directed, I don't remember seeing him lash out at anyone.

I know my father cried. We had a garden in a shared plot with a number of other church members over in Golden Valley. I remember working in the garden with my parents on a hot, sticky Memorial Day in 1964, the radio blaring as we listened to a broadcast of the Indy 500 from Indianapolis. As the race unfolded there was a horrendous fiery accident, and a short while later, they announced that one of the drivers, Eddie Sachs, was dead. My father was a racing fan, and he had met Eddie Sachs through his work. I remember his tears and grief.

I often wonder what my siblings experience of my father is, particularly my youngest brother and sister. But then I spend time with them, and I know I need look no further to find my fathers presence. His love of family, poetry, writing, engineering, flying, cars, travel, and reading are so readily apparent in the lives and careers of each his children. His spirit is imbued in their every word, action and step. In particular I love to see his thirst for knowledge and ceaseless curiosity about life, manifest in his children.

I am honored and blessed to be one of my fathers children.

Namaste.

Lon