Thursday, January 12, 2017

Father Forgets that you are but my baby...

Thanks to my 4-5 hours sleep a day body, I find myself looking out the window from my seat, staring down at the clouds below while everyone else in my row were nodding away, deep in their sleep. My business flights on planes without in-flight entertainment (no thanks to Tiger Air) oftentimes gives me those moment of solitude outside of my house when I can quiet down and reflect on myself.

Just hours ago, I had picked up a book from the bookstore. It is the international best-seller, "How to Win Friends & Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. I used to own it about a decade ago, but gave it to a close colleague of mine as a farewell gift when our careers parted ways.

So here I was, rekindling the love I had for this book... perhaps the only book I voluntarily read from cover to cover more than once. Seventeen pages in... and already I was emotionally shaken by the book. It was a piece by W. Livingston Larned, which back then didn't mean much to me, but now, pens down my guilt.


FATHER FORGETS
W. Livingston Larned

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. Guilty I came to your bedside.

There are the 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 your 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, from 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 it is 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 you 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 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 but 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 arm, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.



I am guilty for all the negatives pointed out and as Larned puts, I have been measuring Renzo by my yardstick, an adult standard. Renzo's youthful innocence and his ability to love me shows through in almost exactly how it is worded, with him creeping up to me after a lecture just to give me a great big hug both as an apology for not reaching my standard of him, and also as a relief to receive a hug back from me.

Have I forgotten that my proper manners were learned from mistakes?
Have I forgotten that my capacity for self control was acquired not long ago?
Have I forgotten that my independence was built up from failed experiences?

I focused my gaze back at the runway that we were fast approaching and decided to write this post before I headed for bed because although Daddy is a 2-hour flight away from you, Renzo, Daddy misses you and wishes for your forgiveness.

Remain the boy who's fits of laughter bellows down our halls and remain the boy who finds joys in the silliest of things, because then, and only then, can you learn about yourself and define your own yardstick, one which measures your life, not anyone else's.

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