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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 on board.
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 a 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.
~by Paul Harvey~
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