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?
One day we’ll have our own month!
It’s Father’s Day. A sort of poor stepchild to Mother’s Day,
A great generator of collect calls back in the day.
I think Mr. Dalrock offered that some evangelical ministers thought ‘father’s day’ a boffo time to give the Harry-Chapin-cats-in-the-cradle sermon. Catholic priests offer treacle for “mother’s day”. Father’s day slips their mind.
At my Catholic Church today, the young priest called all the fathers up to the altar in the middle of Mass, extolled the role of fathers, and how our world desperately needs them, and blessed us. It was bracing, and inspiring. Many of the same men were at the Knights of Columbus meeting before Mass, looking for ways to serve the parish and the poor.
I am sorry if your experience was less heartening.
My father left the family via a divorce in 1942, when I was nine. My relationship with him from then on was remote and not warm at all. Yet, I worshipped him from afar. When he died in an industrial accident when I was seventeen, it broke my heart. He was a distant man; his own father had abandoned his family when he was a lad. He never saw his father again. His feelings were held close to the vest.
His main abiding example for me was that he was such a hard worker. He was an electrician who loved his work and liked understanding new developments in electricity. He also was fascinated by airplanes and managed to get his private pilot’s license.
My biggest regret is that he didn’t live to see his son earn Navy wings and spend a career in aviation. I think he would have been proud.
Yes, Father’s Day is quite different from Mothers’ Day. But then men are not like women. (I know, it’s not PC to say.) We’re not naturally nurturing, we’re usually not touchy-feely, we’re usually tied up in career ambitions, and often gone doing our work. Yet, we provide an anchor, an example, a masculine work ethic that often helps shape our children’s lives.
Happy Father’s Day to all.
J.J. Touching story! Yes, he would have been proud of your accomplishments ! Always keep that thought with you! Fathers are special to us all; sorry so many people have missed the opportunity to have Fathers in their lives. We who have are truly blessed!
I am blessed. All my kids either called or video-chatted with me.
Even though he passed a while back I probably think of my old man every day.
There’s no special day for us step-fathers. A few minutes now and then would be nice.
tcrosse:
Stepfathers are fathers.
Yes they are. And mentors to the fatherless are fathers.
My father and I were not close when I grew up.
We weren’t at odds. He was busy.
At one point he was told he had 6 months to live.
I was told by my wife to spend as much time with him as I could.
He and I had breakfast every Saturday and often hung out during the day.
I’d take him to work with me if an emergency came up.
We prayed for him and we ended up doing this for 6 years, not months.
I don’t miss him. I know every story he ever told. Repeatedly. 🙂
I know every bit of advice he would give me.
I know what dad would do. And often do it.
When I speak or especially sing, I often hear his voice where mine should be.
He got saved shortly before his death. I am grateful for that.
As David said of his son, I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.
I’m fortunate that my relationship with my father is quite good, and while he’s in his 70s he’s in good health.
Sadly, my own relationship with my children is quite strained; I divorced their mother a few years ago and they explicitly took her side of things. I cry every year when I read that poem that Neo posts on Father’s Day, hoping that perhaps maybe this year I’ll get a text message from one of them.
I certainly recognize much of this. My father died in a drowning accident when I was 12. I stood on the river bank and watched him die. I was the oldest of 4 siblings, my mother had nothing.
A long time friend of the family stepped in, married my mother and picked up the raigns of fatherhood. I resented him to start but was soon became very appreciative of him. He raised the 4 of us and was a great father. My real father was a terrible drunk and I’m sure he and I would have come to blows had he lived. I am eternally greatful for this new father. He gave us his life and made us a fine family.
JJ, I was moved by your story.
God bless you and your father
Favorite quote about fathers:
I never really knew my father much. He and my mother were separated when I was one, and divorced when I was 3. I spent small amounts of time with him, a couple times for a few months on end when (I believe) the pressure on her was too much, and she needed a break from it. Even then, if it was longer than a short time (a month), I stayed with my paternal aunt more than with him. It was good, as my own cousin nearest my age was that aunt’s son — we were about 4 months apart. As I reached 12, I spent some time with him again, and suspect it might have been interesting from that point, but apparently his liver was failing (I’m not sure if he knew it right then, or/and his renewed interest came from that, or if it was just “bad timing” of it as a life-complication as he began to see/grok me as a proto-adult). I did not know what was happening, and so never had any chance to ask.
In any event, he passed away when I was 12. He had my mother send me to a summer camp when he was passing, as he did not want my last memories of him to be him frail and wasting. So they aren’t. I do know that he had drug problems when a teenager (1950s) and, while he was straightened out with my mother, he lapsed back into them later in life, which almost certainly contributed to his liver failure.
I also suspect he strongly resembled Ray Liotta in “Goodfellas”, though, when he was with my mother, I believe he was quite legit (though not utterly certain about that — I think he may have been doing some “Goodfella” type stuff while involved in legit jobs, e.g., “stuff falling off a truck” kind of things). I know, at times, after the divorce, he was a pimp and a loan shark, though he never allowed me anywhere near any of that (This is from others long after the time). I’ve also got a few memories that, considered as an adult, *might* have had significant things going on that I had no inkling of. I.e., visits in the middle of the day to an Italian restaurant that I waited in front while he talked to “his boss” in the back. He also worked at night — Since I know he was also a maitre’d at some points, I might be reading more into things than apply. 😀
But, while there are only a few really good memories, there are very very few bad ones. I remember, when I was four, he got a monopoly set, and I stayed up with him and my uncles playing until abut 1am. I am sure they went extra easy on me, mind you, or I would almost certainly have been out of the game much much earlier… Still have that monopoly set, too.
He also got me a new bike when I needed one, for my 12th birthday, I’d grown quite a bit and the bike I had was more suitable for a 6″ smaller child. I had that bike for some years after.
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I think, classically/traditionally, the mother is the main influence from 1-12, the father is the main influence from 12-21 (ages approximate).
Obviously, there are many variations and differences on the individual experience level, and/but the father is nontrivial in the early years, his influence is just diminished. This works differently for boys and girls, mind you, also. Fathers are generally far more significant in early life for girls, as they provide, in the ideal case, a framework to understand men within.
They also do this with boys, but in a different manner, as how the father interacts with the mother becomes the boy’s model view of women. If he clearly loves her and treats her with respect, then, more than likely, the boy-to-man will do the same. If he is directly or indirectly abusive, then the boy-to-man will have a much more derogatory view of women. This strengthen’s even more once the boy reaches the teens — sometimes the boy will become protective of the mother and stand up to the father, leading to more direct abuse, but, unfortunately, this often shifts when an adult, as the boy-to-man experiences the frustrations of adult relationships with women and they also fall short of the nurturance of the mother. And, let’s face it, the females led to such are themselves often the flip side of the mother, and both encourage and accept the dysfunctional relationship (people are complicated).
For boys, the father is a secondary component of early life, while for girls, the interaction is stronger and more foundational. If a girl is a “tomboy”, it’s likely because the father has strength and an attitude that favors “boy behaviors”. OTOH, if she becomes a “princess”, it’s likely because she learned a lot of “princess” behaviors to get what she wanted from the father, which models how she behaves towards men in general. She, too, like the boy, learns how men interact with women from the way the father interacts with the mother — if he abuses her, she is, I believe, far more likely to fall into a similar pattern in adulthood than one whose father treats the mother with respect.
I assert that boys are secondary until teens because men generally innately don’t know how to interact with children, in the same vein as they do with teens (aka “adults in training” or “protoAdults”). Again, this clearly varies a lot between both men and children — have a friend who is largely a “big kid” himself, so he gets along quite well with them.
This distinction, I assert, ties into the “nurturing” factor that women provide, and men generally do not.
I think this is partly genetic, in that our evolution has favored men who leave nurturing to women while they provide for the family and take the main risks for their protection. In some ways, it’s even better in higher-risk societal situations that the children not be too tightly bonded with a man who may have to give up his life to protect them, esp. when it is needful for another male to step in and take the genetic father’s place.
Mind you, I ack: this is all speculation and observed impressions. Not claiming any of that is demonstrably proven in any regard by professionals. But I strongly suspect it’s a good approximation of How It All Works.
I reread this poem every year when you repost it, and it re-breaks my heart and makes me cry again every time. How I wish I could call back my father and tell him how, now that he’s gone, I begin to see how much he did, and how much he cared.
Mrs Whatsit:
I’m glad you like it. I think it’s a brilliant, brilliant poem. The author had an extremely interesting history; see this.
Ed Bonderenka reminds us: And mentors to the fatherless are fathers.
I was blessed to have a wonderful father, but tragically, he died suddenly of a heart attack when I was 15. I came home from a friend’s graduation (it was Memorial Day weekend) and found him dead on the kitchen floor when I literally tripped over his body. The medical examiner said that my dad had probably just finished his dinner (my mother was away too, at a high school reunion) when his heart just quit. My dad’s sudden death was the worst thing that ever happened to me, not only because I was the one who found him but also because it left me unprotected against a narcissistic and emotionally abusive mother.
Fast forward to college, though, and I had two very good professor-mentors: one was my major advisor in the history department and the other was the chair of the religion department. And then in grad school, I was blessed with a professor (eventually my dissertation director) who became a friend as well as a mentor for over 45 years until his death. I still keep in touch with his daughter. Yes, Ed B. is so right: mentors to the fatherless are fathers indeed, and all praise to them.
And a note for tcrosse: Stepfathers are truly fathers too. My mother remarried a week before I went off to college; she had worked as the office manager for a candy manufacturer whose first wife had died of cancer. My stepfather was always kind to me, much kinder than my mother ever was. He said to me on one occasion that he knew he could not be a substitute for my dad– but he was a far better second dad than he knew. I know some would say my stepfather had it easy as my dad had done the heavy lifting, so to speak, of bringing up a kid as far as high school age, but I’m still grateful to my stepfather for being there for me and caring as best he could. He was much more than the man who paid my tuition bills.
“Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden” resonates with so many of us. It captures the love a child feels for a father amidst a childhood in a home where the child “fears the chronic angers of that house.” My own father is approaching a three digit age soon. He is still cognitively perfect but physically finally starting to falter. I provide a lot of care for him. My other siblings are less engaged with him but keep track of him and occasionally visit.
I could never share this poem with my father. He would understand it perfectly and be hurt to realize that my love for him is real but nuanced.
PA Cat:
How traumatic for you. I’m so glad your stepfather turned out to be a great guy.