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Mandy Lee Christenson
is with Doug Lee.

I think as we age we truly learn to appreciate our parents and maybe that maturity helps us understand them a little bit more. My family hasn’t ever been overly affectionate and we don’t say I love you a lot but we know. We learn so much from example, Drew’s family was overly affectionate and I love you was very commonplace, it was uncomfortable to me for a long time, but I adapted and now our immediate family, I believe is a good mix.But my Daddy, the one this post is about… he can talk to a wall and he knows a lot and he’s not afraid to tell you how do to something (and darn it a lot of times he’s right about it). But he didn’t have a great example of family growing up and until I had my own family I didn’t really understand his early years. Each of his brothers has a different story about their early years but the theme is pretty similar, cold parents, some abuse and a lot of neglect or maybe it was just selfishness and immaturity.When my father was my son’s age, he was responsible for helping put food on the table. He worked a lot of odd jobs and I’m sure did things that a young teenager shouldn’t have been expected to do. But it’s probably what planted the seed in him to do better and be better for his family. You see he works so hard or he did when he had to. He taught us a very strong work ethic and a good foundation on the value of a dollar, of course we had to make our own mistakes too but guess who was always there to help us stand back up and try again?His final years in high school he moved in with a neighbor, thank God for Mr. and Mrs. Smith who opened their homes to him and provided a roof, food and some of the love he had been missing. He also spent time as a resident of Monroe Harding Children’s Home. Can you imagine? Thankfully, I can not. When my Dad was 18 the Children’s Home couldn’t let him stay – because every 18 year old should be turned out with no family, no money and no place to stay. (Our system needs work.) But you know what? The folks at the Children’s Home saw something in my father and those early years of college when he didn’t have a place to go for Christmas break or Thanksgiving, they found him a spot to lay his head.That’s another thing, this foster kid without a support system like you and I have, said he was going to college and he became a first generation college student. Do you know how important that was to my family! First, he met my Mom at college, but the fact that he attended school made it so much easier for my sister and I to pursue our educations – not necessarily from a financial standpoint but just the confidence and knowledge necessary to navigate secondary education. Can you imagine what my Granddaddy thought when my Mom brought him home. If you knew him I bet you can guess! He ended up, maybe a little begrudgingly, loving him too. They even started a business together that continues to provide for his family and might even be a legacy.So on Father’s Day and every day, I am so grateful for my Daddy and I love him so much. He supports me, he offers advice, sometimes I even take it and I try really hard not to roll my eyes. I hope that I make him proud, as proud as he makes me to be his daughter. I love you!
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