(Two posts today. Please scroll down)
Please see Love Him To His Face by Rebecca Suder. Background information:
Becky's father died of gliobastoma multiforme, a particularly deadly from of brain cancer, some 20 years ago — before he was 50 years old. The brain cancer isn't mentioned in the article, but I know Becky. I knew her father, too.
Becky offers an important reminder to those whose father is still living:
If you’ve got a father, you’ve got one up on me, so I want you to try something this Father’s Day.
[...]
Take my advice and love him to his face because one day you won’t be able to.
My dad was diagnosed with heart disease.
ReplyDeleteThey gave him six months to live.
I decided to spend every Saturday morning with him til he left.
He liked it so much he stuck around six more years.
____ THOSE WINTER SUNDAYS ____
ReplyDeleteSundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house.
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
~ Robert Hayden (1913-1980)
_____ To a Daughter Smitten _____
ReplyDeleteDesist, my darling dimwit; do not wed
On impulse born of weather fair this June.
No one should be by sun and roses led.
Only till you’ve weathered a typhoon,
Tornado, or at least a spate of sleet,
Will your prospective mate reveal his soul.
Easy times glide by, deny, delete
Demands that demonstrate a nature whole.
Intoxicated by the scents of spring
No common sense could nonsense overwhelm.
Joy seems imminent, yet blistering
Unhappiness might well be at the helm.
None a nun would have you be, and yet
Eden is not ours to gain, my pet.
~ FreeThinke - The Sandpiper
Excellent: Good dads never really die.
ReplyDeleteTo Mr. AOW: Happy Father's Day .hope alls well over yonder~!:)
ReplyDelete