Today we salute something taken for granted: Fatherhood.
Well.
Good fatherhood.
The bad ones can pretty much rot, or at least come around for several more lifetimes until they start to get their acts together.
A good father has broad shoulders for carrying small creatures too tired to walk or just preferring a better view of the world. A good father comes with an enlarged throat from swallowing grief or inappropriate responses. Men are looked upon for wisdom they frequently don’t possess. It takes a moment, or sometimes years, to find the right answers, and that is more than okay. Like everything else in Nature, men are works in progress.
A good father doesn’t necessarily need the correct response for an algebra quiz or have those magic words to mend a broken heart. He should be able to listen. And comfort. He should have a proper lap for rocking.
A good father gets out of bed at two in the morning to chase away nightmares and at three in the morning to bring a glass of water and at four to make room for a small, cold, wiggling and lonely body. Sometimes before dawn he stumbles out of bed again, this time to go to work. In all these years of interruptions to blessed sleep, there are rarely any thank you’s, and that’s all right. One wouldn’t want to be startled into a heart attack by a surprise burst of gratitude from the angels in their charge.
Some fathers will never get that Corvette. Adventures will be postponed, perhaps forever, to pay for braces or dance lessons, football clinics or law school.
But, in those best of days, there will be the simple blessings. Hugs. Laughter from another room. A piece of crayoned artwork or the clarity of youthful insight. Alone in the kitchen, a man will pause to glance fondly at a cheesy photo. Out of the blue, a son or daughter will say, “I love you, Dad.”
That can melt the most acrimonious problem into its proper nothingness.
It’s a good job, fatherhood, with questionable benefits.
Odd, isn’t it, all the changes in the Santa Clarita Valley over the thousands of years? We’ve gone from a primitive hunter-gatherer society to a complicated suburbia on an ever-shrinking planet. Over the centuries, good men — good fathers — have passed on wisdom. It may be how to start a campfire or build an airplane.
The best of men will teach their children how to find the way home in the dark.
So they, in turn, can teach their children how to find the way home in the dark.
It’s Sunday, June 17, 2007.
The Signal raises a glass — be it a sippy cup or champagne flute — and wishes you good, harried fellows a Happy Father’s Day.
John Boston has earned 119 major awards for writing stuff. Besides The Mighty West Ranch Beacon, his work appears in the prestigious thebostonreport.net just about every darn day. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon. Read Boston’s daily blog, his Daily English Muffins, the Adventures of Job Hunter and more of John Boston’s award-winning commentary on thebostonreport.net