Today is Father’s day. Today we honor those men who brought us into being. Fatherhood is a blessing, an learning experience, a test of endurance, patients and character. For some it might even seem like a curse at times. We have fathers who are tough (but fair, right?), and we have fathers who spend their entire lives devoted to the well-being of their families. Then there are some fathers who just beat their kids to instill discipline, or because the bottle or stress tell them to, but don’t worry, this isn’t one of those stories. No matter what kind of father we have, we often take the opportunity to regale anyone who will listen with amusing, tragic or sweet anecdotes of fatherly life-shaping which helped mold us into the people we are today.
I’m going to take that tradition to heart. So join me will you?
My dad was once an auxiliary RCMP officer and – as I only today found out – a shooting instructor. So I thought, what better way to honor my father than by telling the story of my first memory of him. It all began with two big guns and two dead men, and it ended with a lesson that has followed me all my life.
I am a six-year-old boy, playing innocently in my dad’s office. He is an auxiliary police officer. I love the crisp smell of the uniform. Dad would go out and take down the bad guys like a movie hero. I know I shouldn’t be in here, but I am very curious. Dad keeps two enormous guns in an unlocked plastic box. I want to touch them. I want to feel their weight and play with their moving parts. I want to take down the bad guys just like dad.
The guns slide easily out of their foam cushions. To my tiny hands, they are like two great cannons. Big boomers that can stop evil people. One is slightly larger than the other. It’s a 357, and I can’t hold onto it! But the other fits in my little hands snugly. It’s a 38 special! Now I am Officer Remy Chartier; bad guys beware!
Two gangsters attack me from the open door. Boom! Boom! They’re dead. Their blood will get the carpets all icky. Sorry, mom. Another jumps through the open window. Boom! Back out the window with you, scoundrel! One huddles under the desk. “Mercy! Mercy!” he shouts.
“You’re under arrest!” I say. “Hands behind your head! One false move and I’ll shoot!” He obeys, and I slap the cuffs on him. He’s going to jail for the rest of his life!
Boom! A bullet hits me in the side. Luckily I wear a bullet-proof vest. I spin around. Another gangster stands in the open door pointing his gun at my head. Where did he come from? The hall must have softened his footsteps. I try to run. But I can’t move fast enough! Boom! He shoots me in the head, and for a moment I stumble around like Chucky when he was still human and the cops shot him at the beginning of Child’s Play. Am I bleeding badly? I think I might be. As I stumble around, my head hits the corner of Dad’s desk. It hurts so bad! I am suddenly just a six-year-old boy again, blearily peering down at the gun that, nine years later would very nearly put a bullet between my eyes for real.
Dad calls me into his office later that day, and I know I’m in big trouble. He had the guns sitting on his desk. I can’t see his expression, but I don’t have to. He makes me sit down.
“You been playing with Daddy’s guns?”
“No.”
Of course I said “no”. I was just a child, playing childish games. I don’t remember the conversation my dad and I had that day, but one very important lesson was born from it. My dad told me: “A gun, even an unloaded one is a tool, not a toy.”
I have never forgotten such a simple, yet practical lesson. I detest firearms. Not because they are tools used for killing, but because of the sheer arrogance and finality they bring about. Through the years, I’ve seen that the way of the gun leaves no room for survival. One who holds the gun can kill at a distance, and never get their hands dirty. It’s a cold and impersonal way to kill, and running is often futile.
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