Larry Elder's story of reconciliation with his father inspires others

Larry Elder and his father, Randolph

Growing up, Larry Elder hated his father, whom he viewed as cold, ill-tempered and thin-skinned. When he was 15 he and his father got into a fight and avoided speaking to each other for 10 years.

Then, at the age of 25, he finally sat down with his old man and over the course of eight hours he discovered his father was not the man he thought he knew.

"He might have had an unorthodox way of raising a child, a way that is not as touchy and feely as fathers are today, but he was every bit as in love with his children and every bit as desirous of his children having a good life," Elder told WND in an interview.

Elder, who grew up to become a lawyer and nationally syndicated talk radio host, detailed his tortured relationship with his dad and the eight-hour conversation that changed everything in his emotional memoir "Dear Father, Dear Son: Two Lives... Eight Hours." While writing the book he asked his father, by that time in his early 90s, questions about his life. His father kept replying, "Why do you care about my little life?"

This question caught the younger Elder off guard.

"He didn't think of his life as being epic," Elder said. "He didn't think of his life as being extraordinarily difficult. He just thought of his life as a product of somebody who got up in the morning, worked hard and didn't make a bunch of excuses, and what's remarkable about that? To me it was remarkable that my dad didn't think his life was remarkable."

Elder's father started out as a janitor but eventually became an entrepreneur, owning and running a snack bar. Although life was hard, he didn't complain; he just worked harder to try and improve his life and his family's lives. He brought this attitude with him into old age, once he began to feel aches and pains when he got out of bed in the morning.

"Just as he didn't bitch and moan and whine when he was younger, he didn't bitch and moan and whine about the kinds of things a lot of people do when they get older," Larry said of his father, who died just before his 96th birthday. "My dad was grateful that he lived as long as he lived."

On this Father’s Day, Elder hopes people will recognize the sacrifices all parents make.

"The parents didn't have to have you," he pointed out. "They didn't have to go to work every day and come home and work at a job they may not have necessarily liked. They did it because they wanted to put food on the table and make sure you had a better future than they had."

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But Elder, a WND columnist, noted fatherhood is under siege today.

According to the National Center for Fathering, a third of all American children live without their biological father in the home. This includes nearly 60 percent of black children, 31 percent of Hispanic children and 20 percent of white children. Children in father-absent homes are at greater risk of poverty, behavioral and emotional problems, crime, incarceration, teen pregnancy and drug and alcohol abuse.

"The family is the foundation of our moral compass and if that gets broken, our society is broken," Elder concluded.

Among those who do have fathers, Elder acknowledged there are many people like him who take a long time to fully appreciate everything their fathers did for them. He said a number of people have approached him at recent speeches to tell him his book moved them deeply.

WND managing editor David Kupelian, author of "The Snapping of the American Mind," said he was moved by the book.

"Larry Elder's 'Dear Father, Dear Son' is more than just a wonderful and rewarding read," Kupelian stated. "There is something transcendent about a father-son relationship, and Larry's powerful, poignant, deeply honest true story of his long estrangement from his father – and the amazing conversation that healed and restored that relationship – affected me very deeply."

Elder believes people like the book because Elder's father reminds them of their own fathers.

"A lot of people grew up with tough fathers, fathers who were hardened by war, hardened by the Great Depression, and they had difficulty relating to them, didn't realize the fathers had gone through the hardship they had gone through that made them have such a hard bark," Elder said.

"A number of people have told me the book has inspired them to reach out and reconnect with their fathers," he added.

He said he has heard this from both men and women. Elder is delighted that his book has touched so many kindred spirits who suffered through difficult relationships with their fathers.

"I think we are all a product of our family," he said. "There's no way of getting around that, and this provides people a prism through which they can reanalyze their own family."

Get your copy of "Dear Father, Dear Son" today from the WND Superstore!