I wasn’t planning on writing about Father’s Day today, but then two things happened that changed my mind.
I read a bunch of wonderful pieces written by daughters and sons about their fathers, most of whom are gone, but I couldn’t find a single one written by fathers about the experience of being a father.
Then, at the end of the day, I got the expected and somewhat obligatory call from my daughter, she was leaving work – she is a big wheel at Sports Illustrated – and she said she knew she had spoken with me only last night, but felt obliged to call and wish me a happy Father’s Day. We joked about it being both an obligation and an afterthought – neither Emma nor I are into holidays like this, they seem forced and empty to both of us. But I was happy to hear from her, we are getting closer and easier by the week it seems.
So I decided to write about fatherhood from the other end of the track, the other side of the tunnel. The Dalai Lama says what matters is how we love, how we live, how we let go, and all three speak directly to being a father. Some fathers are loving and encouraging, some fathers are destructive and remote, some can never let go. I suspect I have managed to be all of those and more.
I have made every mistake one can make as a father, and done almost every good thing a father can do. I have one rule of fatherhood, through all of the fog, and the unpredictable, dizzying, infuriating and confounding life of a brilliant and independent daughter. Always be there.
“I have loved being your father, Em,” I said tonight, “I know we had a bumpy ride sometimes, but we are ending up in a great place.” And we are. On the great roller coaster of life and trouble, Em and I went up and down, but never let go of one another, never disconnected from each other, never let the other slip away, no matter how hard we both sometimes tried. I left my family some years ago, when I moved up to Bedlam Farm. I didn’t know it, but Emma knew it and for some years has not let me forget it.
A friend of mine told me recently that he was sick and tired of his daughter mistreating him, he just wasn’t going to put up with it anymore, and he nearly broke my heart saying that. I remember when my sweet and loving daughter called me some awful names and I felt her slipping away from me, heading out to sea in the great storm of life. That was a hole in my heart that nothing could fill, not even Maria.
I said the same thing about Emma 100 times that my friend said to me – she doesn’t care about me, doesn’t get me, doesn’t understand me. She probably said the same thing about me ten times that often. But that, I tried to tell him, is the thing about being a father. You are not their friend, not their playmate, not their lifelong companion. You are the one who is responsible, you are the adult, you are the one who cannot quit, must always be there, must always offer love and always, always, tell the truth.
The father must be present, he must take his child by the hand and show him or her as best he can how to live in the world, a nearly impossibly fluid and complicated task in our world, which changes daily. He must always be there, but never enable, take over problems, run away or give up. I remember telling my daughter more than once that I could not solve her problems for her, she had to learn how to care for herself – this after many years of trying to solve her problems – but she would never be on the street while I was alive. She would always have a place to go. Some strange boundary in a world of fog, but the best one I know of.
Being a father is not one thing, but many things, I learn something new about being a father almost every day. It is a job that is never done, yet within it, there is the great pain of separation, the great moment of understanding when the child moves into his or her own life, and out of yours. First, you love fully and honestly. Secondly, you teach by how you live, not by what you say.
Finally, you learn to let go, the great rending of the heart, a wound that never heals but defines the purest kind of love.
My daughter is supposed to go and live her own life, that is the point. The best father is one who is rarely, if ever needed. More than anything else, I want her to look ahead for her life, not back at me. I really matter, but in many ways, I really don’t. That is what being a good father means to me, that she knows how to be happy on her own. And guess what? She does. She does not need me to do it, I am standing by like an old docked freighter if she does. The best father is a happy man, doing what he loves, facing his problems, taking responsibility, finding love. That is the best thing any father could ever teach any child. That is selfless love.
That is the light at the end of the tunnel for fathers.
Don’t ever quit on your daughter, I tried to tell my friend, and she will never quit on you, no matter what she says or how she says it.
