What would you like all fathers to know?
Posted on Jun 15th, 2008
by 
synonym for light
synonym for light
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for June 15, 2008:
If you could send a message to all fathers, or fathers-to-be, what would you tell them? What do you wish your father might have known?
If there are 6.6 billion or more people on the planet right now, how many of them are fathers? or fathers-to-be? that's a lot of dad's. I'd like them all to know that LOVE is the most important thing they can give their children or anyone's children. love in the form of being there and sharing their joys and sorrows. love in the form of listening and being interested in them. love in the form of hugs and space given when it's needed. love in the form of cheerleading and love in the form of being a shoulder to cry on and love in the form of letting them find out how strong they can be and how human we all are. love in the form of bedtime stories. love in the form of loving discipline. love in the form of belly laughs and riddles and jokes and daydreams. love in the form of taking good care of the planet and the environment in which these children will raise their own children. love in the form of showing them how suddenly easy a hard life can become when we suddenly start loving, loving to love and loving to share and loving to play and laugh. love in the form of celebrating the fact that you have a child to love every day. (even if you aren't a dad or mom-- I bet there is a child somewhere that you can love and celebrate with.) love in the form of patience. love in the form of enthusiasm. love in the form of sharing what you've learned in a way that they can hear and learn from.
and, like the bumper sticker says:
"war is bad for children and other living things."
I think that means war at home too. if we are warring at home, with our spouse or our boss or our neighbor, it might be bad for children and other living things. and if we are warring with ourselves, so much the worse for our children and other living things, since it's hard to live in love when you are living with a war inside your own self. so I guess I'd like all fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers and daughters and sons to know that peace begins in our own heart, in our own minds, in our own souls. peace begins in our selves and at home and spreads outwards in concentric circles. and that brings me to that last question.....
"what do you wish your father might have known?" I think my father and my step-father too, had their own paths to walk. I haven't seen either of them in person for many, many years. I haven't even spoken on the phone with either of them or sent or recieved a letter from them for.... 7 years I think it's been, at least. sometimes people need time outs from one another. today being father's day I read this question and it led me to think of each of them, my father and my step-father. I don't think I'm qualified to judge either of their lives or teach either of them any lessons. but the question asks "what do you WISH your father might have known?" I wish both my father and my step-father had known how much each and every one of their actions would affect the children in their lives. how each of their own wars, with those children's mothers and with their employers or their friends or their family members and especially with themselves, was bad for the children and other living things. but I am a mother now. and an imperfect one at that. I have my own wars and they affect my son. and I do not hold my father's or my step-father's mistakes or imperfections against them. they both affected my life deeply and for better or for worse they were both a part of the woven web that is my life story. I bear them no ill will. I hope that each day they are finding peace in their own hearts and in so doing making this world that much more peaceful overall. in sending that wish to them, I find more peace in my own heart too.
happy father's day to my biological father, Leon, and my step-father, Hutch, wherever you each may be. may you have peace and happiness and joy in your hearts today and may you always have love in your lives. you are each threads that are woven into the tapestry that is my life and without either of you that tapestry would show a different picture. right now, today, I am fascinated by the intricacies of the story that the continuously changing weaving tells and ever so grateful that I have had so, so much life. perhaps someday our threads may cross again and I would like to meet you in peace with only love in my heart and see how the peaceful weaving changes the look of the entire work in progress. namaste.
-dawn
If there are 6.6 billion or more people on the planet right now, how many of them are fathers? or fathers-to-be? that's a lot of dad's. I'd like them all to know that LOVE is the most important thing they can give their children or anyone's children. love in the form of being there and sharing their joys and sorrows. love in the form of listening and being interested in them. love in the form of hugs and space given when it's needed. love in the form of cheerleading and love in the form of being a shoulder to cry on and love in the form of letting them find out how strong they can be and how human we all are. love in the form of bedtime stories. love in the form of loving discipline. love in the form of belly laughs and riddles and jokes and daydreams. love in the form of taking good care of the planet and the environment in which these children will raise their own children. love in the form of showing them how suddenly easy a hard life can become when we suddenly start loving, loving to love and loving to share and loving to play and laugh. love in the form of celebrating the fact that you have a child to love every day. (even if you aren't a dad or mom-- I bet there is a child somewhere that you can love and celebrate with.) love in the form of patience. love in the form of enthusiasm. love in the form of sharing what you've learned in a way that they can hear and learn from.
and, like the bumper sticker says:
"war is bad for children and other living things."
I think that means war at home too. if we are warring at home, with our spouse or our boss or our neighbor, it might be bad for children and other living things. and if we are warring with ourselves, so much the worse for our children and other living things, since it's hard to live in love when you are living with a war inside your own self. so I guess I'd like all fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers and daughters and sons to know that peace begins in our own heart, in our own minds, in our own souls. peace begins in our selves and at home and spreads outwards in concentric circles. and that brings me to that last question.....
"what do you wish your father might have known?" I think my father and my step-father too, had their own paths to walk. I haven't seen either of them in person for many, many years. I haven't even spoken on the phone with either of them or sent or recieved a letter from them for.... 7 years I think it's been, at least. sometimes people need time outs from one another. today being father's day I read this question and it led me to think of each of them, my father and my step-father. I don't think I'm qualified to judge either of their lives or teach either of them any lessons. but the question asks "what do you WISH your father might have known?" I wish both my father and my step-father had known how much each and every one of their actions would affect the children in their lives. how each of their own wars, with those children's mothers and with their employers or their friends or their family members and especially with themselves, was bad for the children and other living things. but I am a mother now. and an imperfect one at that. I have my own wars and they affect my son. and I do not hold my father's or my step-father's mistakes or imperfections against them. they both affected my life deeply and for better or for worse they were both a part of the woven web that is my life story. I bear them no ill will. I hope that each day they are finding peace in their own hearts and in so doing making this world that much more peaceful overall. in sending that wish to them, I find more peace in my own heart too.
happy father's day to my biological father, Leon, and my step-father, Hutch, wherever you each may be. may you have peace and happiness and joy in your hearts today and may you always have love in your lives. you are each threads that are woven into the tapestry that is my life and without either of you that tapestry would show a different picture. right now, today, I am fascinated by the intricacies of the story that the continuously changing weaving tells and ever so grateful that I have had so, so much life. perhaps someday our threads may cross again and I would like to meet you in peace with only love in my heart and see how the peaceful weaving changes the look of the entire work in progress. namaste.
-dawn
Access: Public
fathers
August 2008 
Oh Dawn I wrote something before I read your note… You are amazing.
You absolutely have made me a better father—thank you!
Jeff Feaster
Jeff, thank YOU. I'm glad. -Dawn
The other day I was talking to my Mom about a challenge we are having with my brother who has Huntingtons. It's a genetic disorder, and every child who is born to a person with it has a 50/50 chance of inheriting it. Back when my Dad got ill and died, we did not know he had Huntingtons. His father before him had it too. The analogy I can draw better your writing, Huntingtons and war is how it touches each generation. We “make” peace. It is something we create. Your writing makes peace for sure.
(when I first started reading it, I saw it in the form of a free-verse poem on a card or a poster - just a thought).
otter,
after posting this piece/peace, I did some searching on the internetand I was able to contact Leon, my biological father. we have been emailing back and forth this week. he was happy to get a message from me and we are starting, slowly, to get to know one another. I gave him this blog address too and he said he'd read it and it sounds like he likes it. I am going to ask my sister for my step-father's email address soon. baby steps toward walking my talk in the tough and scary-for-me situations. :-)
you are right– we make peace. and when we can make peace with the most challenging things that is when we are really powerful. I'm exporing the difference between peace and avoidance. the other day I had to consciously decide to do something that seemed risky to me. it wasn't time before, but now, it might be.
thanks for reading and taking the time to comment so thoughtfully katherine. I do really appreciate your perspective.
and thanks, too, for the idea of a free-verse poem on a card. maybe I'll explore that a little. I woudn't have thought of it without you I think.
thank you.
oh yeah - and farland – I love you an unreasonable amount mi amiga. I'm sending you something about polar bears that swam to iceland recently – not good news for the bears.
-d
I was immersed in work and didn't get to read this earlier. Better late than never. Thanks for pointing it out to me Dawn, especially in the context you did.
It's a beautiful post and opened memories. My father is long buried, but my mother still trucks along. I haven't spoken with her for years, not because of what she did, but because of what she allowed. But against all odds (I think) and in spite of … of … everything, I like who I am. No, I love who I am. What or who would I be if I had not the past, my specific past? Maybe it's time to think differently. Maybe I'll summon the courage you showed by contacting your bio and legal dads and contact my mother. Just maybe. We'll see.
In the meantime, I aspire to be the father of love you portray. What a lofty and worthwhile goal.
Albert,
I'm not sure I was as ready as I thought I was to take that step of contacting. I felt a lot of emotions that I hadn't felt in a long time and they weren't all terribly pretty. I didn't feel courageous when I was contacting but posting the blog without contacting caused me some internal dissonance (I get that pesky dissonance when I don't walk my talk– Jordan uses it as a tool of parental manipulation– oh! I have to be careful with my words around him!) and so it seemed like the right thing to do, but the next day I wasn't sure if it really was, but what it boiled down to is that life is really no different externally than it was before. I experienced the uncomfortable emotions as they came up and I allowed them and they dissipated and I set my own limits with the contact and they were healthy limits and something that had power in my mind before father's day now has less and I have more power than I realized. it's heady and also rather anti-climactic.