Daggummit

I don't know how to spell it.

I've seen it written a few different ways, and I'm not convinced which are right. Maybe that's because it was never meant to be written down. It was meant to be heard. Every time I hear it, even if it's my own voice saying it, I hear my dad.

He had a little shop behind our house where he built kitchen cabinets on the side. To me, it was a magical place. Maybe others saw it as a mess, but there were boards leaning against one wall, coffee cans full of screws and nails, the smell of fresh cut wood, and enough tools to convince a little boy that his father could build just about anything.

He'd hand me a scrap board, a hammer, and a handful of nails. That was all it took. I was his helper. Or at least I thought I was. Most of my nails ended up bent over instead of driven straight, and my board never became much of anything. Looking back, I doubt I accomplished much, but my dad never seemed to notice. Or maybe he noticed and decided it didn't matter. He made me feel like I was doing important work.

One afternoon, a board didn't fit the way he wanted. He held the pieces together, frowned just a little, and said, "Daggummit." That was it. No yelling. No throwing tools. No storming out of the shop. Just a quiet word, a slight shake of his head, and then he figured out the problem. At the time, I didn't think there was anything remarkable about it. It was simply the way my dad worked and I was just a kid.

Years passed. The little shop is only a memory now. My dad is gone too. Life has a way of filling up with other things, and somewhere along the way I forgot about that funny little word.

Until one afternoon I bent a nail while working on a project of my own. Before I even realized it, I heard myself say, "Daggummit." The sound of that one word carried me farther than I expected. For just a moment, I wasn't standing in my shop. I was back beside my dad. I could almost see that slight frown on his face. Not anger. Not irritation. Just the look of a man who accepted that sometimes boards don't fit, bolts won't turn, and nails bend. Then he went back to work.

That's the part I remembered the most.

Not the word.

The man.

I've said plenty of things over the years my dad never would've said. More than I'd like to admit. Sometimes I catch myself reacting before I've thought things through, and I wish patience came as naturally to me as it seemed to come to him. But every now and then, "Daggummit" slips out. When it does, it reminds me that my father left me more than memories. He left me an example.

I don't think he was trying to teach me anything in that little shop. He was just building cabinets. I thought I was pounding nails. Neither of us knew that something else was being built at the same time.

Maybe that's how the best lessons are passed along. Not through speeches. Not through rules. Just by letting a little boy stand beside you long enough to watch how you live.

I still don't know how to correctly spell "Daggummit."

But I know exactly what it means