(On this Father’s Day, the DWOD is a column I wrote for the St. Catharines Standard about a valuable lesson I learned from my dad,  Rev. Dr. Edward Sam. May you be blessed by it!)

One of the most traumatic events of my life happened in August 1980. I was driving back to Ontario, having successfully completed an internship in Regina, Saskatchewan.

It had been a great summer for this 22 year-old seminarian, full of opportunities to experience firsthand the life of a minister in the United Church of Canada. It was confirmation of the choice I had made to dedicate my life to serving Jesus in this capacity.

In addition to all the memories, I also brought back two personal treats I had allowed myself to acquire with the stipend provided by the Church.

The first was a professionally justifiable investment in some new articles of clothing from a men’s wear store that was going out of business.

The second was an upgrade of the AM-only radio in my car to an FM & cassette player stereo—an absolute necessity for any university student at the time, amen? Lol.

As the lime-green Datsun B210 sped its way through the straight-as-a-lace asphalt ribbon known as the Trans-Canada Highway through golden fields of wheat in Manitoba followed by the winding roads of forest s in North-Western Ontario, I was even more appreciative of the latter investment, as there were very few radio signals to be picked up, except the good old CBC.

Somewhere between Dryden and Thunder Bay, I sensed an urge to listen to Billy Joel’s best ever album, “The Stranger.” In the process of finding and inserting this cassette into the player, I took my eyes off the road for a few seconds.

By the time my gaze returned to the highway, I could see a telephone pole headed straight for me at an alarming speed. I quickly realized that I was driving on the shoulder.

In utter panic I hit the brake hard and steered sharply to the left in order to avoid a fateful encounter with the beam, which I did, thank God! However, the gravel surface of the shoulder caused the car to skid and shoot right across the highway and roll over several times before landing on its wheels in a muddy ditch.

Dazed and bruised by pieces of glass from the broken windshield, I managed to get out of the car, flag down a mobile home and meet with an O.P.P. officer, who promptly issued me a $128 ticket for careless driving (with a bonus of 6 demerit points to boot!) before depositing me in a clinic where I got cleaned up.

To make a long story short, I spent a good chunk of next year’s tuition over the next 24 hours–staying at a motel, catching a bus to Thunder Bay, a cab to the airport and a flight to Toronto, where I was greeted by a grateful father and mother who were so glad to see their son back home alive after this near-brush with death.

The very next morning, as Dad and I entered the garage of our home in Bath to drive into Kingston to file a claim with the insurance company for the totalled vehicle, my father did something that was totally unexpected.

As I proceeded to open the passenger door, he stopped me, handed me the keys to his car and said: “You’re driving.”

Tears welled up in my eyes, as I could not fathom my father’s confidence in me so soon after my act of negligence. Before I could protest, he simply said: “Let’s go.” And off we went.

Nearly thirty-three years later, that incident still stands out as one of the most memorable lessons I learned from my father.

Thanks, Dad, for mirroring our heavenly Father who is “slow to anger and quick to forgive.” (Numbers 14:18).

Having been the beneficiary of such benevolence, may I continue to extend such grace to Priya, Sathiya and Jaya, the three children I have fathered with Sulojana as well as the many spiritual sons and daughters to whom I am a “father” in the Lord.