Tag: fathers

The Little Blue Heron

I just took the dogs out and the little blue heron was sitting out there waiting for us. He comes to our backyard often, picking various perches to look for food. The little blue heron is never excited to see the dogs. He stubbornly holds his position until the last minute that one of them almost reaches him, and then he flies off, loudly squawking his disapproval and disgust. I smile to myself every time I see him. My husband always says that the little blue heron is his dad paying us a visit.

My husband’s father passed away when my husband had just turned 30. We received one of those awful “middle of the night calls” (the kinds of sickening calls that you wish were only true in movies) with the news that my father-in-law had passed from a sudden heart attack. He was 59.

My father-in-law was a complicated man. My husband had a complicated relationship with him. But my husband was his only son of five children, and I never doubted my father-in-law’s love and pride for his son. When my husband was earning his MBA from a prestigious, challenging university during night school, while supporting our family of me and our two young sons with his day job, my father-in-law sent a regular stream of handwritten letters and newspaper clippings, as a form of pride and cheerleading and support.

My husband and our two middle sons took off from work/school today, to go fishing together. I just waved them off, feeling their excitement and anticipation reverberating in my own heart. My husband often fished with his own father when he was a boy. Maybe when the little blue heron flew off just now, he was heading out to sea. Maybe the little blue heron has “a boy with his own boys” to look after today. Perhaps they need the little blue heron’s pride and cheerleading and support.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

379. Who knows you better than anyone else?

Soul Sunday

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Happy Father’s Day! Happy Soul Sunday. My regular readers know that Sundays are devoted to poetry. The dictionary says this about poetry: “a quality of beauty and intensity of emotion regarded as characteristic of poems.” I think what makes poems special, is that despite the fact that poems are often some of the shortest forms of writing, they hold so much “intensity of emotion”. Poems are powerful in their sensitivities. Poems often have the ability to deliver a big gut punch, or an instant throat lump, or a swift connection to our inner knowing. Poetry is potent. Here is my poem for today:

When your seldom seen tears, flowed at the birth of M,

When you became G’s biggest bussing fan, at Daddy’s Grill.

When you held our giant man-child W, like a baby,

In an attempt to transfer strength and take away the pain.

When you proudly became Dancing Dinosaur,

at the Guides meetings with our baby girl.

When you held every baby, against your big broad chest,

On every vacation, to give them and me, the most lovely rests of our lives.

These are the moments that make me in awe of you.

These are the moments that remind me why I love you like I do.

Your love encompasses our family with your devotion,

Like the warmest blanket, on a cool, dark night.

I am so grateful that every one of them, has a part of you inside.

You have selflessly given each of them, a big chunk of your beautiful heart.

And that is why I know they will always be safe and loved,

Because I listen to your strong and steady and reliable heartbeat,

Every night. It is the most calming, lovely sound in the world, to me.

And it echoes through our children, forever.