To have created these beautiful, new human beings, with their own unique personalities and talents ...THAT is a fantastic gift.
I asked the two men what was their biggest concern as fathers, and again their answers were similar. They want to see their children thrive. Fathers know the world can be challenging to navigate, so they want their children to be prepared, to be strong physically, mentally and emotionally.
They are teachers, even when they are not specifically teaching. They teach by example, by the choices they make, by the risks they encourage their children to take, by the the love, patience, caring and support they give their children.
Of course not all fathers are alike, and not everyone has happy memories of their fathers or perhaps no memories at all of an absent father.
When I look back on my own childhood, I was blessed in that I had very supportive parents, each in their own way. Mother was the communicator, the family switchboard, and we could take all our troubles to her for comfort and we had long conversations at the kitchen table.
Father, being Swedish, was more stoic. He never said, “you’re important, I love you.” But he was always there. He supported the family in that traditional way of the times. He could be counted on.
Out of my memory comes one incident. I was almost sixteen, so time to get a driver’s license. We drove a bit around our small West Virginia town, and then went down to the country club, where he was a charter member. He directed me to drive between two tall trees on the grass, which I did. When I asked him to teach me how to park, he said it wasn’t necessary. I could always pull into a parking garage and they would do it.
Being the manager of the local toy factory, the chief employer in the area, he was a big frog in a small pond. When it came time for my driver’s test, he simply called one of the state troopers to come up to the house and we drove around a bit and voila! I passed. Years later, when I needed to drive AND park in the big city of Seattle, I took formal driver’s ed training.
For six summers I worked at the Marx toy factory, in the shipping department doing typing and filing. Once, having fun with a co-worker, I wrote a satirical poem about working there.
Although poem is lost in the dustbin of history, I remember phrases such as “I sold my fingers into slavery,” but “don’t accuse Marx of knavery,” and it went on from there.
Someone in the office got hold of the poem, copied it and tried to send it to the company’s New York office to embarrass my father.
When my father came home from work, he had the poem in his hand. It was caught in the mail room before mailing. He simply looked at me accusingly. “How did you know it was mine?” I asked. “Because no one else had the vocabulary,” was all he said about it.
One other memory came to me. He and my mother visited us in California six months before he died. As he was leaving to go to the airport, he turned around, shook my hand and said: “It was nice knowing you!” That was his unique way of saying: I love you.”
Here’s a poem by an anonymous author from the Internet: A Father's Love
A father is respected because
He gives his children leadership...
Appreciated because
He gives his children care...
Valued because
He gives his children time...
Loved because
He gives his children the one thing
They treasure most - himself.
And so it is.
