A father is a person who is forced to endure childbirth without an
anesthetic. He growls
when he feels good and laughs very loud when he is scared half-to-death.
A father never feels entirely worthy of the worship in a child's eyes. He
is never
quite the hero his daughter thinks. Never quite the man his son believes
him to be.
And this worries him sometimes. (So he works too hard to try to smooth the
rough
places in the road of those of his own who will follow him.)
A father is a person who goes to war sometimes ... and would run the other
way except that war is part of his only important job in his life, (which
is making
the world better for his child than it has been for him).
Fathers grow older faster than people, because they, in other wars, have to
stand
at the train station and wave goodbye to the uniform that climbs on board.
And, while mothers cry where it shows, fathers stand and beam -- outside --
and
die inside.
Fathers are men who give daughters away to other men, who aren't nearly
good enough, so that they can have children that are smarter than
anybody's.
Fathers fight dragons almost daily. They hurry away from the breakfast
table, off
to the arena which is sometimes called an office or a workshop. There,
with
callused hands, they tackle the dragon with three heads; Weariness, Works,
and
Monotony. And they never quite win the fight, but they never give up.
Knights in shining armor; fathers in shiny trousers. There's little
difference as they
march away each workday.
I don't know where father goes when he dies, but I've an idea that, after a
good rest,
wherever it is, he won't just sit on a cloud and wait for the girl he's
loved and the
children she bore. He'll be busy there too -- repairing the stars, oiling
the gates,
improving the streets, smoothing the way.
