This Dad Thing

Friday, May 16, 2008

I’ve figured a lot of it out.  Be firm, be loving, be ready with a smile as quickly as you’re ready with a stern look or a hard voice.  Appreciate the things your child does, the smallest details, because before you realize it they’ll have moved onto other things.  BE there, more than anything else, because time is precious beyond words.

I know these things because before I was a father, I was a son.  At times I was a pretty pain in the neck son.  From the first moments of my life, actually, as I was born premature and at the jagged edge of what medicine would consider viable even now.  My father was recently out of the Army and planning his life based on a timeline that I rather arrogantly decided to change by arriving.  The financial burdens of my medical care were substantial, as were the emotional ones, but my parents hunkered done and got on with it.  They also were kind enough to permit me to survive my teenage years, the times when my sister and I were gifted with the eternal knowledge of the universe and vociferously let our ignorant parents know time and again of that fact via rolled eyes, muffled snorts or derisive grunts.

Those same parents that attended each and every soccer game, school play, dance recital, art exhibit…whatever.  They did it because it was their desire to raise their kids the best they could.

So here I am, closer to forty than thirty and doing a pretty solid job at raising our son.  He’s healthy, friendly and for a not-quite-eighteen month old he’s well behaved and somewhat obedient.  I’m pretty sure I can manage this parent thing with Mabel just fine.

But I don’t want to.

My father is currently in an intensive care unit at a hospital in Chicago.  What was a relatively routine in concept gallbladder removal ended up shifting to a far more invasive surgery and during recovery from that surgery his lungs filled with pneumonia.  My sister and I, parents both, are once again little kids. Filled with a mindless and cruel fear that while we’ve done well with our respective spouses in raising our kids we may not have the advice, input or simply overwhelming flow of love from our father to guide, encourage, help and show us that even as grandparents they are always going to see us as those tiny babies they once held.

I’ve had the amazing good fortune to learn how much I truly don’t know.  To appreciate that a man I once viewed as overbearing and critical is a man of profound tenderness and love, someone that truly dedicated himself and sacrificed much to provide for others.  Someone that bit his tongue far more than I knew, even when I thought I could never satisfy his standards.  He wanted me to achieve my best and I’m better for it.  In fact, I wish dearly I listened more.  I want to listen now and I hope beyond my capacity to express that there is more to hear.  I have much to learn still.

I leave with hope for memories yet to come.  Please hope with me.