A Son’s Recollections of His Father — David Lee McAtee (Part III)

Some might ask why I would write such hard things about my own father. The answer to that is probably manifold. First, it’s now just a few weeks shy of 22 years since Dad passed and I am of the age that if I get 22 more years I will count myself as blessed, and so there is an odd symmetry that strikes me as providing a fitness for writing this now after all these years. Second, I want my male descendants to know the importance of being a godly father. I don’t want them to go down the path my Dad went down. Third, I want people to see the power of God’s grace. God’s grace can and does break generational and familial curses (“to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me”) and makes trophies of His grace out of the most unlikely of all. Indeed He delights in doing so. Rough beginnings for children should not be translated as “God has forgotten me.” Fourth, I want people to have the same compassion for Dad that God gave me. Biblical Christians are always going to be treated ill by those outside of Christ. The natural impulse is to call down God’s curses on them, and there is a place for that. We should not want the wicked to prosper. However, there is something wrong with us if we can’t feel genuine sorrow for the people who ill-use us. They would not do so if they weren’t themselves so twisted, bent, and exhausted with sin. This is the lesson that Tolkien is seeking to teach in the relationship between Frodo and Gollum. Frodo knows Gollum and yet Frodo can’t help but have compassion. We should be able to find in ourselves someplace of compassion for the Gollums in our lives and weep for them even when they are treating us the way that Gollums do. I am not saying this is the only response we as biblical Christians should have but I am saying it should be a response that is present somewhere in us. I think it is something of what Jesus meant when He instructed us to “love our enemies.” This Holy Spirit given ability to have compassion for Dad was the only way I found to avoid the bitterness and to rise up out of potential self-pity and to not embrace the victim role. I never hated Dad. I loved him with all my being. Even now, I tear up remembering him. At 62 years of age and after all these years I still ache, wishing it all could have been different. I am not so much sorry for myself as I am sorry for how much delight and joy he missed out on experiencing. Sin is such a cruel and relentless taskmaster.

Let’s begin with a few abstracted pericopes involving my Dad.

In retrospect one of the funniest memories I have of Dad (though it sent me into terror at the time) is when Dad was taking a friend of mine (Cal Richmond) and myself to Church one day. We were probably somewhere around 16. Dad pulled up to the busy intersection at White School Road and US-12. This was a busy intersection for little Sturgis. Anyway, Dad pulls up to this intersection and asks Cal, who is sitting in the front seat with Dad, “is there any traffic coming.” Cal answers instantly, “Nope.” With that report, Dad began to pull out. Just as we were inching forward Cal continues with his previous one-word answer by saying, “Nothing but traffic.” Dad slams on the breaks and backs up from where he had inched forward. Cal was laughing hysterically over pulling one over on Dad. I was sitting in full fright mode. I knew what was coming.  Sure enough, Dad exploded. Cal instantly quit laughing. I had never seen Dad that mad at anybody before except his wife and I. I thought for sure that Dad was going to go all unleashed. But, to his credit, he got his rage under control quickly realizing that this adolescent wasn’t his to deal with as he pleased. But, boy howdy, that was an intense storm. After Dad dropped us off at Church, Cal asked me, “Does your Dad get angry like that often.” I deflected but thought, “buddy, you don’t know the half of it.”

I noted earlier that Dad was proficient with firearms. He had won county-wide trophies in competitions and was justly pleased with his ability in this regard. Dad did a great deal of skeet shooting and pistol range work at the local firing range. I suppose by today’s pc standards our home would have been called a compound or armory with all the weapons (rifles, shotguns, pistols — all of them of all descriptions — as well as assorted and sundry knives. I had thought at one time this would be our inheritance but in subsequent years the IRS caught up with Dad and errors on income tax reporting and the finest weapons were sold to satisfy Uncle Sam’s lust. All these weapons were fascinating for an adolescent but now in retrospect, I realize that those weapons were present at the expense of Mom having to work. In short, they shouldn’t have been purchased because the household budget just didn’t allow for that extravagance.

Dad was so attached to the weapons that he routinely slept with a loaded derringer under his pillow at night. I genuinely feared he would accidentally shoot himself or worse yet one of us for thinking us a burglar or something.

I spent a large amount of time in hospitals growing up. Accident-prone and disease-afflicted doesn’t begin to cover it. To Dad’s credit, he kept a close and protective eye upon me during those hospital stays. I knew he was concerned for his son’s well-being and recovery. Dad also protected me once from a Junior high-school Principle who once crossed a boundary in terms of physical abuse of me as a student. I chuckled at the time thinking that Dad’s main beef was probably that the Principle was trying to take possession of territory that belonged to Dad. I knew that wasn’t true but there was a dark humor in considering it.  So, you see, Dad did love me. He just couldn’t get it out.

Years later, in my education travels, I learned that troubled parents will often typically beat the child in the home they love the most. Win, place, and show for me in that regard. I never doubted that Dad loved me. He just was carrying too much baggage to get it out in the usual channels.

Here I pick up where we left off in the previous entry. Dad had moved out and had his own apartment now in Columbia, South Carolina. We stayed in touch and would have Dad over for meals. During this period he attended my Seminary Graduation and sprung for some nice steaks that we grilled.

I was thinking that some normalcy might be restored. Not so much.

One night one of my siblings who lived in Indiana phoned me. She had been talking with Dad on the phone and Dad was making what she believed to be some pretty credible threats of committing suicide. Dad always had a streak in him of trying to get sympathy from people. It was the old routine of him saying … “I’m such and such a negative thing,” with the desired response that being sought; “But Dad, no you’re not, but rather you are just the opposite of such and such whatever negative thing that was said.” This time though the ante had been raised with my sibling. This time he was threatening suicide with the expectation that my sibling would talk him out of it by saying sweet things about how important he was to her. At least that is how I analyzed the whole thing at the time but my sister was convinced that Dad was serious. My sister is an educated woman and though I had my opinion of what was going on, she was the one talking to him and she was convinced he was serious. I trusted her opinion which meant I had to do something about it. I tried to call Dad but he wouldn’t pick up the phone though he had just hung up talking to my sister.

So, I had to decide what course I was going to take. If I went to bed ignoring it all and he really did it I would be living with it the rest of my life. Something like that is not something people get over. So, after banging on his door to no response, I did the only other thing that could be done. I made the proper calls, tracked down and awakened a judge at some forsaken wee hour in the morning to sign documents, and had Dad committed for 24 hours in an institution so that he could be analyzed and watched. The alternative to doing what I did was possibly living the rest of my life knowing that I had, by my inaction, killed my father. I’m in my mid-20s at this time. Someone that age should not be put in that kind of position.

It was a long time after that occurred before Dad spoke to me again. Interestingly enough he never brought it up when he did speak to me again. He also never talked about suicide again with me or any of my siblings.

This brings us to a good place to pause. One more entry ought to find us finishing.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him. View all posts by jetbrane