Tomorrow is Father's Day here in the States. I don't know where you are but this is what's Top Of Mind here.
From a musical perspective only Country Music really speaks to this. But it speaks in different voices as your kids grow up. Yeah, Country music takes you on that journey.
Three chords and the Truth.
When they're young
This is the easiest time for fathers. Trace Adkins sang about this better than anyone. I posted about this a long, long time ago. Reader Mark left a comment there:
The other day my oldest son, who is a freshman at UND (North Dakota, not that other 'ND') asked me if I remembered taking him, and a couple of his friends to Pizza Hut for lunch one day. He remembered it like it was yesterday. I lied to him. I told him I did, and I feel terrible about it.
Folks, it's not what we recall, it's what our kids do.
Amen, and amen.
The Queen Of The World likes this one. I think it reminds her of the time her Daddy took her fishing and she won the tournament.
When they grow up
Yeah it sucks, but kids grow up, and have to find their place in the world. Sometimes that means pushing back against The Man. As I posted at the time:
For years, Dad and I wouldn't talk. I had a lot of anger in me then, and it came out in strange ways. Bad ways. Sorry, I won't talk about what happened with #1 Son, but that he came out right side up didn't have much to do with me.
This Father's Day weekend, I think on both of those.
Growing up, I knew that my Dad was a great father. He set an example: he was a fine provider, although we didn't grow up with a lot. Not wealthy, not weepin'. He was someone who I could look up to, never doubting for an instant that we were everything to him. He adored Mom. And so it was a terrible shock to find out, in my forties, that he was made of flesh and blood. For a while, I couldn't forgive him for that.
I like to think of myself as a smart guy, and I must confess that it's very nice indeed when someone refers to me as a "wickid smaht bahstid". But I sure was an idiot when it mattered. Like Dad, I found - perhaps for the first time - that I, too, was mere flesh and blood. Full of Foolish Pride, and driving myself into a ditch.
I'll swallow my pride if you will.
That post is worth reading.
Sometimes they don't come back
We ask a lot of our sons. Some times we we ask them to to go to far away places. Sometimes they don't come back.
Reflections on Father's Day
I remember this being hard to write. It's hard to read now.
What I remember the most about being a father is is this:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The Archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the Archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
- Kalil Gibran, The Prophet
So let it be written. So let it be done.
