I was going to write about Father’s Day. About all the great Dad episodes over the years in this family. Instead, it was becoming a list of Mommy fails:
About how I never wanted to say to my kids, “Just wait ’till your father comes home,” and then one day I did. About how I quit teaching the Bride how to drive. After she hydroplaned her way through five trees and over the Hope Road sign in the rain, Bob gallantly picked up the pieces of my shattered psyche, and taught her how to drive.
But maybe that’s the point? When we’ve had it up to here with the mundane, daily life of children, housekeeping, cooking, laundry, driving, pet care and generalized nursing duties. like picking bees out of the Rocker’s clothes, well a good Dad knows when to step into the fray. The 50s are gone and Father Doesn’t Always Know Best, but it would behoove him to know how…
To calm a frightened child at night
To cook a meal, or pick one up
To do the dishes
To help his child learn to ride a bike, and drive a car
To tutor/help with homework, including advanced math and science projects
To encourage critical and creative thinking
To not mix colors and whites in the laundry
To ease the passing of an old dog over that rainbow bridge
To remind his wife that everything will be alright, again and again, and that she has a partner in all this
And to stick around until that time when it’s just the two of them again, and they can lean on each other
A Good Husband and Father will bend with the wind, above all he must not be rigid and set in his ways. He will put his family first, ahead of his career. He will protect them at all costs. And even if he was hit as a child, he will never hit his children or break their spirits. He would never use words or discipline to humiliate them. And if his Father left, or he never knew him for some reason, this Father will be doubly determined to never abandon his family, he will ride out the storm of life. He will be like that Israeli fruit, the Sabra; an Israeli born citizen named after a prickly pear – tough and treacherous on the outside, but soft and tender on the inside.
I remember dancing with my Foster Father, or really standing on his feet while he twirled me around the kitchen. There was a dogwood tree outside the window, and he would whistle a tune and sometimes play the spoons! I remember playing gin rummy with him almost every night, for pennies. I remember his little presents for me every day when he returned home from work at Picatinny Arsenal – a flower, a pretty rock, or a colored pencil. Ada always said he was a hard act to follow and she was right.
Fatherhood today can be a challenge, a paradox. But when it’s done well, the outcome is pure love. When your children yell, “Watch Daddy, watch me,” all they need is to know that you love to watch them: climb trees; play an instrument;, swim without swimmies; or ride a bike. All they need is your presence. So sleep late all you Dads out there, put down your devices, and then remember to play and have fun tomorrow! Oh and Bob, your second and third Grand Daddy acts are priceless!
MountainMornings 