The Agony of Fatherhood
A young father-to-be was pacing back and forth, wringing his hands in the hospital corridor while his wife was in labor. He was tied up in knots of fear and anxiety, and beads of perspiration dropping from his brow revealed the agony of his suffering. Finally, at 4 AM, a nurse popped out of a door and said, “Well, sir, you have a little girl.” He dropped his hands, became limp, and said, “Oh, how I thank God it’s a girl. She’ll never have to go through the awful agony I’ve had tonight.!”
The Ideal Father
The father of five children had won a toy at a raffle. He called his kids together to ask which one should have the present. “Who is the most obedient?” he asked. “Who never talks back to mother? Who does everything she says?” Five small voices answered in unison: “You play with it, Daddy!”
Definition of a Father
A father is a man who carries photographs where his money used to be.
My Son, My Son
A fine Scottish Christian man, who was a successful businessman, had one son. He was proud of his boy for he was for all outward appearances a splendid, well-educated, and respected young fellow—until one day he was arrested for embezzlement. At the trial he was found guilty. And all through the trial, and even up through the rendering of the verdict, the young man appeared essentially unconcerned and proud and nonchalant. Certainly he was not humbled or broken by the experience thus far.
But then the verdict was brought in. The judge told the young man to stand for sentence. He stood, still somewhat cocky and proud. And he glanced around the courtroom, only to notice that over at his attorney’s table his father too was standing. His father had recognized that he was involved with the problem of what his boy had become.
He looked and saw his father—who once had walked and stood erect with head and shoulders straight, as those of an honest man with a clear conscience. And now those same shoulders were bowed low with sorrow and shame as he stood to receive, as though it were for himself, his son’s sentence from the judge. At the sight of his father, bent and humiliated, the son finally began to weep bitterly and for the first time repented of his crime.
Your Father Knows the Way
When I was a small boy growing up in Pennsylvania, we would often visit my grandparents who lived nine miles away. One night a thick fog settled over the hilly countryside before we started home. I remember being terrified, and asking if we shouldn’t be going even slower than we were. Mother said gently, “Don’t worry. Your father knows the way.”
You see, Dad had walked that road when there was no gasoline during the war. He had ridden that blacktop on his bicycle to court Mother. And for years, he had made those weekly trips back to visit his own parents.
How often when I can’t see the road of life, and have felt that familiar panic rising in my heart, I have heard the echo of my mother’s voice: “Don’t worry. Your Father knows the way.”
A Father’s Love
On a cold winter evening a man suffered a heart attack and after being admitted to the hospital, asked the nurse to call his daughter. He explained, “You see, I live alone and she is the only family I have.” The nurse went to phone the daughter. The daughter was quite upset and shouted, “You must not let him die! You see, Dad and I had a terrible argument almost a year ago. I haven’t seen him since. All these months I’ve wanted to go to him for forgiveness. The last thing I said to him was ‘I hate you.’” The daughter cried and then said, “I’m coming now. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
The patient went into cardiac arrest, and code 99 was alerted. The nurse prayed, “O God, his daughter is coming. Don’t let it end this way.” The efforts of the medical team to revive the patient were fruitless. The nurse observed one of the doctors talking to the daughter outside the room. She could see the pathetic hurt in her face. The nurse took the daughter aside and said, “I’m sorry.” The daughter responded, “I never hated him, you know. I loved him. And now I want to go see him.” The nurse took her to the room, and the daughter went to the bed and buried her face in the sheets as she said good-bye, noticed a scrap of paper on the bed table. She picked it up and read: “My dearest Jane, I forgive you. I pray you will also forgive me. I know that you love me. I love you, too. Daddy.”
Father’s Role
The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. –Theodore Hesburgh
Parental Perspective
It is said of Boswell, the famous biographer of Samuel Johnson, that he often referred to a special day in his childhood when his father took him fishing. The day was fixed in his adult mind, and he often reflected upon many of the things his father had taught him in the course of their fishing experience together. After having heard of that particular excursion so often, it occurred to someone much later to check the journal that Boswell’s father kept and determine what had been said about the fishing trip from the parental perspective. Turning to that date, the reader found only one sentence entered: “Gone fishing today with my son; a day wasted.”
Right Behind Father
A man and his young son were climbing a mountain. They came to a place where the climbing was difficult and even dangerous. The father stopped to consider which way he should go. He heard the boy behind him say, “Choose the good path, Dad; I’m coming right behind you!”
Luther the Tender Father
Martin Luther was a good father, knowing as if by instinct the right mixture of discipline and love. “Punish if you must, but let the sugar-plum go with the rod.” He composed songs for his children, and sang these songs with them while he played the lute. His letters to his children are among the jewels of German literature. His sturdy spirit, which could face an emperor in war, was almost broken by the death of his favorite daughter, Magdalena, at the age of fourteen. “God,” he said, “has given no bishop so great a gift in a thousand years as He has given me in her.” He prayed night and day for her recovery. “I love her very much, but, dear God, if it is Thy holy will to take her, I would gladly leave her with Thee.” And he said to her, “Lena dear, my little daughter, thou wouldst love to remain here with thy father; art thou willing to go to that other Father?” “Yes, dear father,” Lena answered, “just as God wills.” When she died, he wept long and bitterly. As she was laid in the earth, he spoke to her as to a living soul: “Du liebes Lenichen, you will rise and shine like the stars and the sun. How strange it is to know that she is at peace and all is well, and yet be so sorrowful!”
Collect Calls
Illinois Bell reported not long ago that the volume of long-distance calls made on Father’s Day was growing faster than the number on Mother’s Day. The company apologized for the delay in compiling the statistics, but explained that the extra billing of calls to fathers slowed things down. Most of them were collect.
Justice and Love
At dinner one evening, Tommy misbehaved. He father, always a strict disciplinarian, reprimanded him, saying, “Tommy, if you do not behave, you will be sent to your room!” Tommy did not listen. Ordered from the room, he heard his father’s last words: “And there will be no more food from you tonight!”
Later, in bed, Tommy’ s thoughts of his behavior began to bother him. He was hungry. He couldn’t remember ever having felt more alone or alienated. He began to cry. Then he heard a noise on the stairs. Footsteps came closer to his room. His door opened and his father came in. Closing the door, he came over to Tommy’s bed and said, “I love you, son, and I’ve come to spend the night with you.”
The Quaker Father
A Quaker family lived in Pennsylvania. Against the father’s wishes, the son Jonathan ran off and enlisted in the cause of the North during the Civil War.
Time passed and no word from Jonathan. One night, the father had a dream that his son had been wounded in action, was in distress, and needed the care of a father.
So the father left the farm, and discovered where the troops might be. He made his way by horse-drawn buggy until he came to the scene of action. He inquired until he found the commander and asked about his son. The commander replied that there had been heavy action earlier in the day and many had fallen wounded. Some had been cared for, but others were still left out in the trenches. But he gave permission to the father to go and try to find his son. He told him where the action had taken place.
It was not about dark, so the father lit a lantern, and the light fell across wounded young men, some calling for help, many too seriously wounded to cry for assistance.
The task seemed impossible. How could he find his son among all those wounded and dying?
He devised a little plan, methodically he would comb the scene of action with his lantern. But that wasn’t fruitful. As he stumbled over body after body, he almost despaired.
Then he began calling loudly, “Jonathan Smythe, thy father seeketh after thee.” Then he would walk a little ways and call again, “Jonathan Smythe, thy father seeketh after thee.”
A groan could be heard here and there. “I wish that were my father.”
He kept diligently at his search. Then he heard a very faint, barely audible reply, “Father, over here.” And then, “I knew you would come.”
The father knelt down and took him in his arms, comforting him with his presence. He dressed the wound, carried him to the buggy, took him to a place of seclusion and nursed him back to health.