A Father is a Gift | Reflections on Love, Strength, and Wisdom

The Gifts a Father Brings

"It doesn't matter who my father is. What matters who I remember he was." -Anne Sexton

After John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, on of his associates met with the late president's young son, John-John. "Are you my daddy?" the little boy reportedly asked the man, whose name was Mr. Haddad. According to Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes, when Haddad acknowledged that he was, John-John said, "Then will you throw me up in the air?"

Though our hearts may ache recalling how tragedy snatched away a young boy's father, little John-John put his finger on something as intangible as it is true. Reaching beyond bloodlines and family ties, fatherhood is a portfolio of treasured moments and priceless associations that are stored in the hearts of children everywhere. Like vintage snapshots gathered in an old scrapbook, fatherhood is about remembering.

"It doesn't matter who my father is," the American poet Anne Sexton once wrote. "It matters who I remember he was."

What each person recalls about his father is different. Harry Truman had a characteristic association of his father that followed him from his childhood, when he was accountable to his father for chores, to his presidency. "As long as I have been in the White House," it is written in the Presidency of Harry S. Truman, "I can't help waking up at five A.M. and hearing the old man at the foot of the stairs calling and telling me to get out and milk the cows."

When you look inside your childhood scrapbook, what characteristic images of your father emerge? What do you associate with him?

Maybe there's a snapshot of dad carving the Thanksgiving turkey, tinkering under the hood of his car, or shooting hoops in the driveway. Click! Maybe there's a snapshot of dad in his suit and tie rushing to catch the train, or making griddle cakes on Saturday morning, or shaving in front of the bathroom mirror. Click!  Maybe there's a picture of dad tending his garden, reading his newspaper in front of the fireplace, or spraying everyone on a hot summer day with his garden hose. Click!

"In my family," one teenager said recently, "we coined the expression 'father joker disease' to describe dad's fierce sense of humor, which resulted in practical jokes and mischief. I can still hear mom cautioning him, when he got down on the floor to wrestle or play King of the Hill, to be careful not to hurt any of us. No matter what she said, there was always bumps and bruises in the end."

Dare devilish but well intentioned, our dads blend different habits and moods. Somber, strong, enthusiastic, and quiet, they come in many shapes and styles. Maybe your dad is a man at home in jeans and a work shirt, who likes to split wood and go camping. Or maybe he's a briefcase man in a dark suit who never makes it home for supper. He might be a "Mr. Mom" who has stayed at home full time to raise the children. Fatherhood is varied. 

But when we stand back and look at the picture emerging on the screen of our mind, we may find some common elements. We may discover that fathers often tend to see love as a contact sport, an emotion expressed not so much through words as through deeds.

Tossing us into air, twirling us around by our hands so we spin like a helicopter, and throwing us into the pool put a rough edge on dad's affection. Like a papa bear nipping at the necks of the cubs in the new litter he ha sired, dad often masks his affection with mischief, batting us around with his thick paws as he straddles the line between fighting and playing. "Is this fun or roughhousing?" we ask. And the answer is "Yes". Mischievous and gruff, it is love just the same.

How sad, then, to remember little John-John, left searching for someone to fill his father's shoes. Surely he realized at a very tender age that a father is a safety net who will catch us when we fall, and that to have a father is one of life's most precious gifts!