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"Dad, What Does Honor Mean?"
written by: Helen Dowd
"Dad, What Does 'Honor' Mean?"
Exodus 20:12 - "Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." This is the first commandment. Paul emphasized it again in Ephesians 6:2 - "Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise."
"That's it! I've had it!" Eileen pushed back her chair from the table, got up and went to the kitchen for the broom and dustpan. Her father had just broken another dish. It had happened every day this week and Eileen was fed up with it. "We've just got to do something about Dad," she said to Bill, her husband, after the meal was over.
"Well, I'm fed up with it, too," said Bill. "I can't bear to watch him eat, the food dribbling down his chin, his spluttering noises. Meal time is supposed to be something to be enjoyed, not dreaded. What do you suggest we do?"
Together Bill and Eileen concocted a plan. Bill went out to the garage and brought in the sturdy hobby table and set it up at the far end of the dining room. Eileen pulled down a wooden salad bowl from the cupboard, and brought in a plastic tumbler from the picnic dishes. When it was mealtime, Eileen led her father to the little table, placed his food in the wooden dish, filled his tumbler half full with water, put his bib over his head, and pushed him, none too gently into his chair. Then she served up the meal at the dining room table for herself, Bill and Tommy.
During the meal Tommy kept looking over at his grampa. "Eat your dinner, Tommy," Bill said sternly to his son. So Tommy ate his meal in silence, stealing secret glances over at his grampa every now and then. When the meal was over, and grampa was sitting in his easy chair, Tommy crept into the room. He used to sit on grampa's lap, but grampa was now too frail to hold a sturdy seven-year-old; so Tommy snuggled into the chair beside him. He lay his head on his grampa's lap. A tear trickled from the old man's eyes as he stoked his grandson's head. He used to read to Tommy, but now Tommy often read to him. But not tonight. Tommy felt that grampa was too sad to listen to a story. Tommy just wanted to comfort him.
For the next several days when the family had their meal, Grampa sat alone at his little table, eating in solitude. Tommy kept sneaking quick glances at his beloved Grampa as the meals went on. It bothered him to see the tears which inevitably rolled down Grampa's cheeks, mingling with his meal. How Tommy wished that he could go and sit
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