Post by Steve Straessle
We’ve been wanting to write you this note. We’ve been wringing our hands, looking to the stars, staring at ceilings, and shifting our feet to find the right words. You deserve this note. You deserve to know what the dads of this world have been thinking about as Father’s Day approaches.
You see, we think about you a lot. We can remember when we first learned that your mother was pregnant and how our jubilation was quickly tempered with the awesome weight of responsibility. We watched as your mother’s body swelled with the new life beating inside of it, and it made us determined to be good fathers and better husbands.
It seemed like the weight that was sitting on our collective chests became heavier with each pound she gained. Your foot moved. Your elbow stretched her skin like the underside of a trampoline. Your mother complained about her weight gain but she never looked more beautiful. She groaned under the stress of childbirth and we held our breath with every push.
One dad we know had this experience at 4:30 in the morning. His wife was long in labor, and he became tired of the sanitized room and nurses saying “It won’t be long.” But then it happened. His son was born. The boy screamed his entrance into his new world and his father swallowed hard. He wasn’t the overly emotional type so he already predetermined that he wouldn’t cry, that he wouldn’t let a single teardrop escape his eyes.
As the nurses worked the baby over, counted his toes, cleaned his eyes, and wrapped him tight, the father stood guard nearby. He held his wife’s hand but never took his eyes off the child. When the nurses left, the father loosened his grip on his wife and walked slowly to his baby sleeping in a plastic crib.
He put his hands on either side of the bed and stood over the child. A glint in the window caught his eye, and he noticed the sun was rising and had cast a small rectangle of light on the floor with its ascent. The light crawled toward him as the sun rose. The father touched his son for the first time. Being a new dad, all he could think about was tickling the smallest toes that he had ever seen.
He used one hand then to caress the baby’s forehead. The light kept moving. The father bent down close to his child and inhaled the newest breath on earth. The light crawled on. The father pulled the baby’s knit cap a little tighter around its ears. The light moved up the crib slowly.
The mother’s breathing had become rhythmic and the father looked to her in the new beauty of motherhood and was glad she was sleeping. He then turned to do what he had dreamed about for so long. He held his son’s hand. A tiny hand embraced the dad’s finger and held tight. The tears came then. The tears dropped silently on the baby’s bedding forming a wet map of emotion.
As the tears fell, a warmth touched the father’s other hand. The rectangular light from outside glided over the crib and for a moment, the father was transfixed. The two greatest powers in the world had converged in one delivery room — the strength and beauty of heaven, and a father’s love for his new son.
We watched you grow, our sons and daughters. You brought us unimaginable joy when you were youngsters. You kept us laughing, kept us working, and kept us up at night. We changed your diapers and applauded the smallest feat — using the potty, learning your ABC’s, tying your shoes.
Remember when you were four years old and played sports like soccer and baseball? Remember how you received a trophy just for showing up? We loved that. You were so proud of that trophy. It was all the encouragement that you needed to stick with the game, to try your best and to be part of something greater than yourself.
But participation trophies should stay in your little-kid past. You played for baubles back then. You tried your best because of the lure of a plastic image on a pedestal. While we loved it when you were young, we need you to know that the real world is very different. Sometimes hard work is not rewarded in an outward fashion.
Sometimes you’ll give something your very best and still fall short and there will be no participation award. It’s difficult. It’s life. But our pride in you is still very much there. You see, failure in life is inevitable, it happens to everyone at some point in time. But failure does not mark you as a man or as a woman — what you do after you fail is what marks you.
We know a dad who is in the education field. He once had a student who had no father, no mother, and lived with a great-aunt.
The great-aunt brought the boy to the educator’s office and begged for help to make him into a good man. The educator knew better than to promise such things, as schools can only build on foundations first laid at home. But, the educator did his best. There were rides to school, very helpful teachers who were willing to tutor, and encouragement from every adult in the building.
It’s just that the boy was so far behind. He lacked any type of academic background and he lacked stamina. The boy left the school at Christmas and brushed by the educator on his way out saying, “It was too hard. I’m dropping out.” The educator was crushed. He second-guessed himself. He wondered what he had done wrong. But, he moved on. There were other kids who needed attention.
The end of the school year came in a sweltering May and the educator returned from graduation night exhausted. A little light blinked on his answering machine and he hit the play button. A familiar voice said, “Sir, it’s me. I want another chance. I’d like to come back.” The educator felt his energy renewed. Win or lose, the boy was willing to get back in the ring.
It’s that type of motivation that every child must find. It’s that type of willingness to swallow defeat but still taste the hint of victory that drives ordinary folks to become extraordinary.
In essence, we’re most proud of you when you swallow your fear, embrace confidence, and move forward in the face of adversity. Makes us think we’ve done our job as dads.
We’ve seen dads who have been brought low with grief over the loss of a child. There was a dad who lost his daughter when she was much, much too young to give up her soul, and we saw his absolute, heart-wrenching grief as he let her go. It’s unbelievable. We’ve known dads who temporarily lost their children to bad influences and bad behaviors and the result is much the same.
This is why we harp on you about staying away from drugs and alcohol. This is why we expect you to lift your body through physical exertion, spiritual growth, and the euphoria that comes from helping others. We don’t want you to settle for the lowest common denominator because that’s not you, you are better then that. We want you to scale Everest. We want you to orbit the moon.
As you grow, we want you to know that we are keenly aware of our own failures. Too many of us have neglected you and made you feel like you were second best to lesser things. We’ve had to take care of our jobs, but we know better than to do so at your expense. Some of us have not been around you enough and for that, we are profoundly sorry and ashamed. There is simply no excuse for a father to neglect his children. We’ve lost our tempers, said things we didn’t mean, and have been less-than-loving to your mothers — all of which we consider great failures and character flaws. But, we’re trying.
We must constantly renew our paternal energy and recommit ourselves to raising you and helping you to be the young men and young women that we know you can become. We’ll not sacrifice you to the lure of the lesser things, and we promise that if you need us, we’ll be there.
You see, we want to be your fathers. We want that responsibility that so scared us when your mother was pregnant. We want this because no matter how far you travel, no matter how old you grow, no matter how deep your wounds or how difficult your life, you will remain totally and completely, our dear children.
Steve Straessle is the principal of Little Rock Catholic High School for Boys.
