teenyGreen’s BodyBlog

Father Forgets

by W. Livingston Larned

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Listen, son; I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead.  I have stolen into your room alone.  Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me.  Guiltily I came to your bedside.

There are things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you.  I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel.  I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too.  You spilled things.  You gulped down your food.  You put your elbows on the table.  You spread butter too thick on your bread.  And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, "Goodbye, Daddy!" and I frowned, and said in reply, "Hold your shoulders back!"

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon.  As I came Up the road, I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles.  There were holes in your stockings.  I humiliated you before you boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house.  Stockings were expensive - and if you had to buy them you would be more careful!  Imagine that, son, form a father!

Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes?  When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door.  "What is it you want?" I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither.  And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me.  What has habit been doing to me?  The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding - this was my reward to your for being a boy.  It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.

And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character.  The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills.  This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night.  Nothing else matters tonight, son.  I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!

It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours.  But tomorrow I will be a real daddy!  I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh.  I will bite my tongue when impatient words come.  I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: "He is nothing buy a boy - a little boy!"

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man.  Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby.  Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder.  I have asked too much, too much.

  http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~chrislw/dadforget.html 

"I have enough trouble overcoming my own limitations without fretting over the fact that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence."–John Wanamaker
Added to my sig.

I left one fitness club to go to another, hopefully this will work out better.  I’m also working on my own business and a project with some other businesses.  I still workout too much and don’t eat enough.  I was really bummed when I wrote out my stats today.  I didn’t get out the tape measure, but I know my clothes are loose.  Time for brown rice bread pb and j.  I can make like four of those little sandwiches have a good smoothie for breakfast and chicken, yams, and veggies for dinner and get a lot of good food.  Maybe put on some mass.  I need to get more protein in too.

I’m going through a lot of changes now.  My life is literally falling apart around me.  The last straw seemed to be when a close friend whose family I have also been close with for ten years, died at the age of 30.  His car exploded when he drove into a lamp post across the median on a freeway.  He and his friend in the car with him died instantly.  And of course we have to wait for dental records and all of that to identify him, and no one is allowed to see him.  He’s been on ice for a couple of weeks now.

I don’t mean to belittle my friends death.  I am devastated, but life goes on.  I just have so much inspiration to get up and fulfill my dreams.  That’s what Steven did.  He lived a full life.  He really did a lot and helped out so many people.  Alcohol was involved in the accident, but everyone has their problems.  He’s  a good man, and I miss him.  His myspace is up, and I almost forget he’s dead when I check it.  He will just be frozen in time.

I’m thinking I will probably volunteer to go talk to some high school kids about drunk driving, because unfortunately he did it often.  He was a pro.  This was his first drunk accident and his last.  And so many people tried to save him.  I wish I did.  I don’t drink.  I tell all my friends now, I like to go out I can be dd.  It just doesn’t seem real.  I guess I really need to do something to honour his memory and help other people through his example.