For tomorrow: Happy Father’s Day!
[NOTE: This a slightly edited version of a previous post of mine.]
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?
Just ask the people who never had one, or who had a difficult relationship with theirs.
==
I think if you surveyed matters with care, you’d discover the latter was bog standard though not universal for men born prior to 1970. Some people manage to rebuild in their young adult years. It’s easier to rebuild with your father; with your mother, seminal patterns tend to repeat themselves, though the presence of grandchildren may modify that.
Father’s Day… I sit and contemplate his empty coffee cup. Recalling a long ago ‘talk’ with him and mom about ‘what should we leave you?’ Having been gone since late teens, them often not knowing even what country I was in. The right answer came without thinking ‘You gave me life and love, any material things pass to others.’
I don’t sense Hayden’s poem as expressing unease re father-son relations.
“Fearing the chronic angers of that house” suggests a dysfunctional family inhabiting it. It is also a poem of guilty feelings about not appreciating the Old Man and what he quietly did for his boy.
“Robert Hayden” was black, born “Asa Sheffey”,rejected by his parents, grew up in a sick, tumultuous 2nd family in Detroit. That is the origin of “the chronic angers of that house”.He converted from Baptist to Baha’i.
Here is another of his:
Reclaim now, now renew the vision of
a human world where godliness
is possible and man
is neither gook nigger honkey wop or kike
but man
permitted to be man.
My father died after a sudden illness/medical emergency which developed over a few weeks in December, 2010. He passed away on the day after Christmas – and my daughter and I were stunned with how suddenly that all happened. He was a wonderful and helpful reader to my first couple of books, a supportive male grandparent to my daughter, and the best guide ever to nature walks, as well as being the rock of my mother’s life – I don’t think she has ever recovered from losing him. But he was a rotten teacher of how to tell time on an analog clock – I think my next-youngest brother and I were terminally scarred from his attempt to teach us. Dad was so brilliant that he couldn’t grasp how we couldn’t see something so simple… so simple to him, of course.
That poem is a beauty. Cicero’s comments on background add context, but the poem speaks for itself to each of us.
My father was warm, loving, patient, and strong to each of his four sons. He was modest and self-effacing. He showed each of us–so different in our talents and ambitions–how to be a man, both strong and gentle. Though he has been gone for eight years now, I think of him every day.
I stand with Ammo Grrrl – and my Daddy, Grandad, Grandpa, Husband, his father and grandfathers, and our Sons.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/06/thoughts-from-the-ammo-line-479.php
Well, maybe the last sentence is a little presumptuous, since supposedly the pension money is going to run out regardless of how many people are working.
What she said.
Me Too!
So grateful for that man–the best father ever to a daughter who came into his life in his second marriage. Never a missed phone call, never a moment when he cut her off for something more important. THE BEST DAD–by birth or not!
Love him. Too bad his own birth daughter was never allowed to enjoy him until she was nearly 40!
Thank you!
Here in Italy Father’s day is March 19th, memory of saint Joseph.
Dr.Meg Meeker’s 2006 book:
“Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters”
Dads and Moms: Well worth the read.
Dr. Meg Meeker’s 2006 book,
“Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters”
Well worth the read.
Neo: Sorry about the dual post. Didn’t appear on mine, so I did it again and Both came up, Dangit. Can you please
Remove one? Blessings!!
Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads at Neo’s site.
I was very blessed to have a wonderful relationship with my Dad from my earliest memories–someone I loved, admired, enjoyed and respected. The man who loved me well and set the foundation for me to have excellent male relationships all my life, ranging from brother, husband, sons, co-workers etc etc. He died in an accident 2 weeks after his 43rd birthday, a grave loss to our family. But I always say, he lived long enough to impart just about everything that is important in my life then and now. Things he said to me I have shared with our children, so great has been their impact. A good father–an immmeasurable treasure.
I’m blessed with two wonderful adult daughters.
The whole schtick about tending the fire, checking that the doors are locked, digging out of blizzard while the ladies stay inside is built into my identity. Having been divorced and then a failed long-term relationship, but then having a great second marriage gave me insight as to the added value that a father can have on kids when they are young if they live with them, and what kids lose if they don’t.
Generalizing, too many boys and girls lack a father figure, and it shows. And once they reach adulthood it is especially evident in the young men.
My father wrote one letter to me during my college years–a letter of advice. I still have it seventy-five years later. Its ending began my gradual realization that he was the wisest person I have known: ‘And finally, advice is to be considered, not necessarily taken.’
In Oz the official celebration is in September. But given the blessings of fatherhood… for me every day is Father’s Day. And I miss mine regularly. He was an incredible honorable man and would have been delighted by his grandkids and great-grandkids. His was a daily faithfulness that never wavered.
I appreciate the poem.
But I’d also like to add “role expectations”.
Hypothetical: My wife and daughter are in the house along with a couple of our daughter’s friends, call it junior high age.
Old times. Coal furnace in the basement.
Who leaves the warm bed to get the fire going? Me. It’s my job. I’m a guy. It’s what we do. I’d do it if they were all strangers, although a hypothetical putting that together escapes me at the moment.
Ditto answer the door at two in the morning.
Various reasons including that guys are supposed to be able to do such things better, endure cold better or at least put up with it, and any incremental reduction in expected life span is part of the job description and not to be remarked upon.
Love would be involved in certain circumstances, but role expectations including expectations of oneself also apply.
https://johnkassnews.com/theres-no-fathers-day-without-a-mom/
Thanks, Neo, for good wishes, since I’m both a Dad to 4, and already a Grandpa to a couple.
Here’s a small gift to you and all here, Stayin’ Alive like you’ve never heard:
https://boingboing.net/2023/05/29/the-bee-gees-stayin-alive-but-on-a-church-pipe-organ.html
(Got to boing boing from Don Surber — haven’t looked at the b b cool stuff for awhile for some reason.)
I’m sad my own sad alco Dad remained disrespectful for all of his only 56 years, dying in the same year as his own father, my Grandpa, died at 86. Was a bad year for me. All years since have been better. Glad my kids have a Father faithful to his wedding vows.
Another version of Stayin’ Alive that perhaps you haven’t heard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRNGVi0gTxk
Here’s my favorite poem about fathers. I’m no authority on the subject, but it strikes as deep, true and beautiful.
_______________________________
Step On His Head
Let’s step on daddy’s head shout
the children my dear children as
we walk in the country on a sunny
summer day my shadow bobs dark on
the road as we walk and they jump
on its head and my love of them
fills me all full of soft feelings
now I duck with my head so they’ll
miss when they jump they screech
with delight and I moan oh you’re
hurting you’re hurting me stop
they jump all the harder and love
fills the whole road but I see it run
on through the years and I know
how some day they must jump when
it won’t be this shadow but really
my head (as I stepped on my own
father’s head) it will hurt really
hurt and I wonder if then I will
have love enough will I have love
enough when it’s not just a game?
— James Laughlin (1914-1997)
Huxley, thanks for that poem. Do you think when he speaks of the hurt that will inevitably come in the future that he is anticipating the pain of separating from them as they become adults? Especially the fact that, in their leaving, they will almost certainly say and do many things that are cold or hurtful in order to find some emotional distance from their parents?
I love that poem about fathers, Neo. It made it into my hand-written Poem Book a long time ago (as did some of the poems that Gerard featured on his site).
The line that gets to me every time is “What did I know, what did I know….” Such regret at the time lost, the ignorance and arrogance of youth. Feeling the deep gratitude now, but too late.
Sundays too my grandfather rose in the blue black cold to stoke the coal furnace in the basement….Monday through Friday, he went down into the blue black cold of the mine to bring the coal to the surface and to put food on the table. What did I know, what did I know then about the love he performed with his hands and his back and the breath in his blackened lungs?