A father’s gift June 12, 2025By Rita Buettner Catholic Review Filed Under: Commentary, The Domestic Church My grandfather was a cabinetmaker, and my father – his son – inherited his love and skill for woodworking. He has tackled a staggering number of projects over the years. The grandchildren have all played with the rocking horse and ride-on airplane my father made when we were little. He built a large wooden fire engine as a surprise one Christmas. My dad even designed a beautiful wooden wardrobe for my niece’s dress-up clothes. Many of his creations are practical – the kitchen table our family used for decades, bunkbeds my twin nephews enjoy, a two-tiered stand for my birdcages, bookcases and more. But none of those stand out for me like the partition he built for our dining room, back when I was growing up in a family of eight in a Rodgers Forge rowhouse. We didn’t have lots of room at the time. Still, when my grandmother was dealing with a health issue and needed a little extra support from my parents, my father took some plywood and two-by-fours and built a wall to divide our dining room into two parts. Then he set up a bed for our grandmother and moved her into our house. It must have made for a cramped living situation, but that never crossed my mind. As a child, I was simply delighted that Grandma was right there. What a treat. Some evenings, I would slip into her space and watch “Jeopardy!” with her. If I was lucky, she would have a tin of powdered hard candies on her little table. I would find a lemon-flavored one and make it last as long as possible while we tried to make our guesses in the form of a question. It might not have been the perfect living arrangement, but those days resulted in some of my cherished memories with my grandmother – just those ordinary evenings together in a sliver of space at the end of the dining room. As a child, I took for granted that we would make room for Grandma. It’s only as an adult that I find myself reflecting on how willingly my father stepped up to create a solution with my mother. It would have been easy for him to point out the limitations of our rowhouse, especially with such a large family. Surely there must be another option, maybe an easier option. But my father is a problem solver with a big heart and deep faith. He knew how to create a new space where there wasn’t really space. Where others saw challenge or impossibility, he saw an opportunity to carve out a little room and welcome my grandmother into our world. Walls usually create division, but my father built one that helped bring our family closer together. My father helped me see that we often have more than we think we do. He also showed me that a father’s heart often has an incredible capacity for love. “God chooses ordinary men for fatherhood to accomplish his extraordinary plan,” G.K. Chesterton said. When I think of our Father in heaven, I like to imagine him being a little like my father on Earth – looking at a problem and finding a way to solve it that I can’t see. Where I see limits, he sees possibility. Where I see that there’s no way we can meet a need, he sees an option I would never have considered. He’s all-powerful and all-knowing, and he embraces us with his infinite love. No grief is too heavy for him to ease. No problem is too vast for him to solve. No challenge is too complicated for him to unravel. What a gift it is that the fathers in our lives can give us some glimpses into how we are loved by our heavenly father. Read More Commentary Rome and the Church in the U.S. Question Corner: When can Catholics sing the Advent hymn ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel?’ A steady light: Pope Leo XIV’s top five moments of 2025 Theologian explores modern society’s manipulation of body and identity Encountering Christ in neighbors facing detention, deportation and loss Corridors of gratitude Copyright © 2025 Catholic Review Media Print
