On being compassionate

For Mother's Day, I had a mini-photoshoot and wrote about what my mom taught me. For [U.S.] Father's Day, I didn't. Maybe it was because I'm actually in the same country and was able to celebrate with my daddy dearest in person. Maybe it was because Father's Day in the U.S. falls on a different day than in Australia, so the relevance felt a little different.

Mostly though, I think it's because the things I learned from my dad are much harder to put into words than those that I learned from my mom. And that's not to say the relationship is better or worse or the lessons grander or smaller. It's just different, as the connection between a daddy and his daughter is different than that of a mom and her girl.

I'm quick to tell people that my mom is one of my closest friends. That in spite of rough years during my adolescence, we have a close relationship with good dynamics and I don't know what I would do without her. I love my dad more quietly, albeit no less. We write poems for each other and watch the original Law & Order episodes after dinner. Even now, as I think over all the things he has taught me, all the things on which he has lectured me, all the ways he has helped me and watched me flourish, I find it difficult to put into words that will do it justice.

But over all the little things that matter so much, there is one big one. One that exemplifies who my dad is and who I want to be and maybe makes it easier to see why my relationship with my dad is so hard to translate.

My dad taught me that having compassion and being compassionate are two very different things.

Everyone has compassion. Everyone has the capacity to be kind, to share in successes or failures, to understand. But not everyone does. Having compassion, having that capacity, is different than embodying it. Being compassionate is asking simple questions with a genuine interest in complex answers. It is a wholehearted concern for the well-being of the people around you. It is accepting that people can live differently than you expected and still be worthy of love. It is learning that even strangers are as consequential as you and that your actions will have a greater effect than you can see.

My dad does. He is compassionate in his classroom and in our home, and his compassion for me - his concern and interest in the person I am and the life I am building - has given me so much. He never asked me to be someone I wasn't, and he loved me when I grew into a woman that may have taken him by surprise (I highly doubt my dad thought his daughter would get tattoos and move to Australia to work for a Christian organization). Compassion says be you and I will love it, no matter what. I've learned that people will notice your mistakes far less often than you think, but they will always, without fail, notice your compassion.

I'm a work in progress, but I am working on being compassionate. Because when I grow up, I want to be like my dad.