Happy Father’s Day!
[NOTE: This a slightly edited version of a previous post of mine.]
It’s Father’s Day. A sort of poor stepchild to Mother’s Day, although fathers themselves are hardly that. They are central to a family.
Just ask the people who never had one, or who had a difficult relationship with theirs. Or ask the people who were nurtured in the strength of a father’s love and guidance.
Of course, the complex world being what it is, and people and families being what they are, it’s the rare father-child relationship that’s entirely conflict-free. But for the vast majority, love is almost always present, even though at times it can be hard to express or to perceive. It can take a child a very long time to see it or feel it; but that’s part of what growing up is all about. And “growing up” can go on even in adulthood, or old age.
Father’s Day—or Mother’s Day, for that matter—can wash over us in a wave of treacly sentimentality. But the truth of the matter is often stranger, deeper, and more touching. Sometimes the words of love catch in the throat before they’re spoken. But they can still be sensed. Sometimes a loving father is lost through distance or misunderstanding, and then regained.
There’s an extraordinary poem by Robert Hayden that depicts one of these uneasy father-child connections—the shrouded feelings, both paternal and filial, that can come to be seen in the fullness of time as the love that was always, always there. I offer it on this Father’s Day to all of you.
THOSE WINTER SUNDAYS
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house.Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
Great tribute, Neo. And I really like your use of ‘treacly.’ 🙂
Just ask the people who never had one, or who had a difficult relationship with theirs.
Most people are in one of these categories or the other during their nonage. You have an opportunity with your father to rebuild in later years. Your mother, not so much.
Thanks Neo…living overseas we celebrate Father’s Day later in the year…and it doesn’t seem to have the weight it still does in the US.
I consider myself richly blessed paternally cross-generationally. I had a very good relationship with my dad (and in many ways still do…lessons taught – wisdom passed on – love bearing fruit etc…) & so far my girls and I hold pretty tightly to one another. It’s a rewarding effort, being a father…even in the tough times. But I know I am only part of the picture…We are a family and my wife and I work even harder to be that together. So I know it isn’t just me being “dad.” It’s us being a family.
I’m glad I’ve avoided most of the mistakes my own Dad made, especially the womanizing while married.
I’m glad my own 4 kids have a good, strong nuclear married husband-wife family. I’ve always tried to be a good Dad, and I got a nice cherry pie (my favorite) today.
Sometimes I worry that making our own family have so many fewer problems than what I grew up is helping to lessen the strength of the characters of my kids. But I actually don’t want them exposed to the kinds of problems that made me stronger, thru survival, but so heavily damaged a couple of my sisters. Not killing them, but damaging them for life.
If some 15% can survive big problems, which also makes them stronger, is their added strength worth the damage to the other 85%? I don’t think so, but is certainly a place for many small problems, not a fantasy of “no problems”.
Thank you. Being a responsible father, navigating around the perceived mistakes of ones’ own, isn’t a high-profile job. The poem grabbed it.
Very interesting biography of Hayden at Neo’s link.
It makes the poem much more poignant.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46461/those-winter-sundays
I was one of four adopted children with incredible and incredible mother and father, anything I did to mess up at times in my life was on me, I could never blame them. My little dad, because I remember him that way when he was in his 90’s and outlived mom by about 8 years was so well liked in the assisted living place because he was always thanking his caregivers and having sung in the church choir for 65 years when he was lonely he sang hymns and gave thanks. He was a good reasonable man to me when I was growing up and expected a lot and I was a decent kid because of his and mom’s expectations, things worked that way back then.
The best thing about him was that all of my life when I had a situation at work or in my life I could talk to him and he would listen and then his suggestions were always to be reasonable and fair, he would suggest that I slow down, remove the emotion and just look at the facts and never make a decision without sleeping on it.
Now that I am the older dad with married children, son, daughter and step-daughter I try to be the same kind of reasonable person who listens and then makes suggestions to slow down and let the emotions flow out and then make decisions on facts, sometimes it’s best just to hang in a let things ride.
I was so blessed with good parents and now with good grown up children in their 40’s who are all good parents and spouses, not always easy but it’s good.
Thank you for the very moving poem, Neo.
Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads here.
This is not, strictly speaking, a Father’s Day episode, but there is a father in it, and I’ve been looking for a chance to post it.
To quote a friend — Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3LlZ4SYDaA
Carol Burnett, Ken Berry, Roddy McDowall, Vicki Lawrence, and the superb Tim Conway spoof on Rogers-Astaire films
I have a relatively uncomplicated life. Dad is long gone, but not forgotten. I talked with my two sons, and son in law today. All are fathers. I also spoke with my two god daughters. I am father to them all and their spouses. They can all count on me when necessary. I pity those who never had a strong, loving father. You missed the parent who guided you to be loving, strong, and relentless. I hope you are not amongst the lost.
Have loved that poem ever since I first came across it a few years ago.
Compared to mother’s days, fathers and families didn’t go to spas.