We should not be passive observers in our life journey but partners in its creation, the ones who assign meaning to every path that we walk...
Happy Father's Day
This being Father's Day, I find myself again pausing and reflecting on what this day truly means. Of course, in its simplicity, and in an ideal world, it means love and thanks and honor to the men from whom we were borne - the men who were thereby meant to be our caregiver, provider, disciplinarian, educator, and in so doing would forever love us unselfishly and unconditionally. But being a father is far more complicated and demanding than becoming a father . Being a father means leaving one's mark on the world, and this force of fatherhood cannot be overstated - for good or for bad. It comes with a power that doesn't just shape and direct children during our in-home years but with a power that controls our lives forever, as we tend to tread the pathways that our father laid down, for our entire lives.
Fatherhood comes in assorted variations. There are traditional fathers who embrace a profoundly fundamental and systematic behavior of fatherhood, diligently loving, caring and providing for their offspring. There are fathers who willingly and thankfully take on the role of parenting someone else's child through circumstances such as death, family breakup and/or divorce. Unfortunately, there are fathers who physically abandon their children either before and/or after their birth or abandon them emotionally while still assuming the role of parent within the home. There are fathers who further abandon their children by refusing them contact and emotionally destroy their adult child even more when that adult child has reached out and approached him for connection. There are fathers who have been cheated out of custody when there was a divorce. There are fathers who have been so demeaned and bad-mouthed by mothers who will not share parenthood and by so doing have destroyed the chance of their children ever being able to build a relationship with their father, even though he did nothing to deserve the negative treatment he now receives. There are separated or divorced fathers who selfishly choose to be absent from their child's life. And there are fathers who have been physically and/or emotionally abusive. But all children have a father and as a society we have Father's Day to remind our sons and daughters that they have fathers and that they should appreciate them. Unfortunately, an absentee father sends a different message and most fatherless children at some point, and sometimes always, will feel unworthy.
Father's Day is not a happy occasion for children who have been rejected, but it can provide an opportunity to, in some way, let a child know that he is loved. It can be a time to reach out, apologize, with no excuses or explanations. Maybe the message will get through. Maybe not. But it must be sent .
Father's Day is also not a happy time for fathers whose children have rejected them. On this day their children should be honoring them and celebrating their father's contribution to their lives. Instead their love for their father has been disowned under the influence of an insecure or vindictive parent. Today can be a day to attempt communication, to let it be known that they celebrate their role as a father and accept that their children cannot, and let the children know that they look forward to the day when they will be able to recover their identity as children of two parents. But rejected fathers should not allow the smears about them to affect the view of the reality of who they are and how much their children benefitted from their love and care.
My thoughts this Father's Day are for both the fathers and children, alienated from each other. In the case of estranged parent/child/adult-child relationships there is, depending on the outlying circumstances, always reason for hope.
I was fortunate enough to have a father who, though he struggled with his own demons and was not by any means perfect, provided for our home financially and emotionally, to the best of his ability. Unfortunately it took me many years - in fact, well into my middle age and after his death - before I fully realized just how much he had given to his family. Today, on this particular day, I take the time to think of him with love, to ask his forgiveness for the lack of in- depth time and respect that I did not afford him, and to thank him sincerely for the positive contributions that he did make in my life. I hope that in some spiritual way he can hear me and know that I am now always more aware that who I am is in part due to who he was.
