On Parenthood

A self-reflection, written when my girls were young, and edited through out the years.

 

On a Saturday morning I listen to the radio and hit the floor to the rhythm of the beat,

            Caitlyn sits next to me and begins to do the same.

                        We smile at each other.

                        Our smiles turn to laughter as we stand and begin to dance,

                                    Each as each can

                                                Until I pick her up and twirl her around and around

                                                            And we fall to the ground.

 

If being a father could only be so easy

            The dance at times becomes too hard to teach, too difficult to imitate

The music so varied, the rhythms sometimes soft, other times frenzied.

            The themes are sometimes soft, other times happy, and too often sad.

So much to share, the task feels so overwhelming

            Perhaps the most difficult thing about the entire process is that it brings me face to face with those steps that I never really mastered myself.

                                    Consistency never achieved

                                    Values never internalized

                                    Dreams never pursued

            Yet, now I must attempt to share what I know of the dance, of life and living.

So much is black and white

                        Don’t touch, hot

                        Don’t talk mean, make nice

                        Look both ways, careful there.

                        Eyes, ears, nose, hair

So much is fun

                        The red ripe strawberry and the big hungry bear

                        The napping house

                        King Bidgood’s in the bath, and he won’t get out.

So much is not

                        Responsibility for your actions

                        Faithfulness, in your self and others

                        Learn to live, to love

                        Learn to forgive

So much that must be shared cannot be explained

            Only by living and watching can trust be built

I may not ever see some of the impressions I make on my girls, good and bad.

 

Of course, the most difficult thing about being a father is the realization that no matter what I say or teach, or preach, it is what I do that is most important

            Do I share, help others, love, look at the sunsets and clouds with wonder, read, hug and kiss, laugh, talk nicely, spend time. . .

                        Or do I not . . .

            And if I do not, or not enough,

                        What damage do I do to those I care about the most?

In the real world, I cannot always be the man I want to be

            Emotional consistency is not one of my better qualities

                        Especially when I allow life to get in the way of living,

 

Of course, I am a father, even when I am at work

                        when I look at the photographs and artwork on the walls

Those pieces of paper that fill my office with life

            Even then I am a father still.

At work I often think about how I am a father to my three precious girls.

            I wonder what they re doing

            I worry about them

I think of the things I want to do with them, and for them, the next time I see them.

 

But truthfully, thoughts do not make a father.

            I am really only a father when I am with my girls

                        Trying to show them how to live by the things that I do

            Or, at least, in the things they see me do and the things they perceive me as doing in the outside world.

            What would they think if they knew the truth?

 

So, sometimes when I come home I am just in a different place

            Having just survived another days swimming with the sharks

                         Or having just done battle with my fellow road warriors

Who, after all, are just trying to get home safely and sanely to the people they love too, or to share their dinner alone with the nightly news.

Sometimes I am deep in thought about what ever has me worried that day

            The broken records in my head

Making the transition from one place to another is sometimes harder than the drive,

            And always longer than the miles.

It’s one thing to get home at the end of the day.

            It’s quite another to be there, and more than anything, I want to be there.

 

Among my darkest moments are those spent thinking that I have not been there,

            That I have let my girls down, or stumbled, when emotion or carelessness has caused me to say something that I did not intend.

                        When I have shown them the wrong way to be

Perhaps the hardest lesson in life to learn, they will learn themselves as they watch me stumble " that people are indeed human

            That sometimes life is hard to live as you desire

I can only hope, my deepest hope, that they someday will understand how hard I tried to show them how to live well,

But not that really,

            Rather, how much I love them, each of them

                        And care about them, each of them

                                    And how much I want them to find happiness.

 

I was 28 years old. . .

            Earl, the father of my daughter’s mother had just died.

I was sad and confused.  He was so young.  No one so close to me had died before.

            His death raised many emotions.

One afternoon, my mother took me in her arms, sat me in her lap, and lay my head upon her shoulder.

            She rocked me, for probably the last time in my life.

                        She sang to me from a book

            “I’ll love you forever,

                        I’ll like you for always,

            As long as you’re living,

                        My baby you’ll be.”

I felt then what I wish my girls to feel

            I will love them for ever

                        I will like them for always,

            And as they go to school, make friends, go to college and to work, become lovers and perhaps marry,

                        They will always be my children

 

I cried for the loss of Earl

            But more so for the certainty of the love of my mother

I want so much to share that love with each of my girls.

copyright - Thomas J. Dennis

Reviews

[Teresa B]

I liked this. And true- no matter where we go in life or where our children go , we are always their parent and we always love them.
Thank you for sharing your heart.

[M.J.Grace]

It is awesome to see a father so in love with his kiddos! I love the format.