Doing Life With Them

In 2018, I opened a coffee shop with my dad and mom and my fiancé at the time, now my wife, on West O Street in Lincoln, Nebraska. At the time we opened the coffee shop, I was working with my dad managing the gas station that he had started with his grandfather before I was born, and up to this moment in my life, I'd never known any other life than one with entrepreneurship in it.

For my dad, every spring was full of early mornings and late nights (like the ones in Open to Close), as he would wake up the farm in preparation to plant new seeds in the fields. In the summer, there was always something to do: maybe help at Camp Sonshine, the summer camp my aunt and uncle run on the family farm, or clean up the woods, or tend a garden, or build a pool for your kids to enjoy. In the fall, you are back out in the fields, this time with the combine and a grain truck, harvesting the bounty from the spring's preparation and whatever rain the Lord provided that year. Into the truck the harvested seeds go, and off to the grain elevator, where you might sit in line for an hour or more, waiting to dump the load you currently have, just to go get a new one and continue the cycle until the grain elevator closes that night. In the winter, whatever your day had been, snow meant getting in the truck to go push parking lots with a shovel and a bucket of salt in the back to take care of the sidewalks. At any moment, something may need your attention at the gas station as well, and it often did.

Perhaps at this point it is needless to say that we didn't take many vacations growing up. Or maybe you hear these stories and compare it to the life you had as a child. Or perhaps it makes you think of the life you now live, and you think I missed out on something, but my memory of this childhood is enormously positive. I don't resent my dad and mom for working hard, in fact, I admire them deeply for it.

As a child, those springs, I was in the tractor with my dad and grandpa planting the seeds. Those summers, I was with my family at camp as that ministry was being birthed. I was in the woods with my dad chopping up firewood and burning piles of brush. I was in the backyard helping to spread mulch on the berms and cut the sod out for the swimming pool. Those falls, I rode in the combine and drove the grain truck with my dad. I accepted Christ in one of those grain trucks with my grandpa on the way to the elevator when I was young. Those winters, I sat shotgun in the plow truck while my dad pushed the parking lot, sipping on hot chocolate that we picked up from the gas station before we went out for the evening or early morning. I got out with a shovel when it was time to scoop the sidewalks and I had a cup in my hand to spread the salt right alongside my dad. At any other moment, I might be at the gas station, perhaps making myself helpful by sweeping the floors or putting ice in the pop machine, or maybe just sleeping in the truck while my dad brewed the coffee and baked the bread in the early morning. As a young kid, I might be playing in a fort made of twelve-packs of soda, later on I could be found stocking the cooler and breaking down boxes. Eventually, I was hiring and firing and helping to do the paperwork. I was counting the cash at the end of the day in the drawer, and I was telling every customer "Thank you for coming and please come again!" when they walked out the door.

I grew up with my parents, doing life with them. My mom was ever present and loving to me growing up. In all the in-between moments, of which there are many in the average year. My mom was sitting beside me, teaching me how to read and how to write, how to do math, teaching me history and science, showing me what it meant to be patient, and how to show someone loving kindness. She was showing me what it meant to listen and how to respond to a child who, let's just say, didn't always agree with every decision his parents were making, or may want to ask questions just to see what the answer might be.

Growing up, I learned something new every day and no question was a bad one. Growing up, I spent a lot of time with both my parents. I got to experience their lives with them. Growing up, I was taught that hard and abnormal did not mean bad or wrong.

These are things that I want my kids to know:

• I want them to be curious and have the ability to self-educate. I want them to know that there is no such thing as a wrong question and that they can learn anything they would like to. My mom fostered that in me.
• I want them to remember doing life as a family. I want them beside me, in the truck or in the field or in the woods or at my desk. I want them to remember learning from watching me and my wife, not simply from being told what to do. That's more important to me than whether they are on a sports team or go to dance classes.
• I want them to know that just because something is hard or they don't see other people doing it does not mean that it's bad or wrong.
• I want them to be able to think through what they want, why they want it, and make decisions for themselves.
• I want them to have the knowledge and skills to be successful.
• I want them to have the peace that comes from parents who modeled forgiveness, patience, compassion, empathy, encouragement, and loving-kindness to their kids, doing their best to emulate the character of their Savior. Parents who said sorry when they messed up, who were approachable, and who didn't judge.

These are the things that I am thinking about right now as a husband and father. I feel so enormously blessed to be pursuing business with such positive memories of my parents doing the same while also raising children up in the way they should go.