What Is A Father? {Insp}

"What Is A Father?"

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 onboard.

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.
Received on Sun Jun 18 01:23:27 2006