For Those who Ache on Father’s Day

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I know this day sucks for you. You’ve been ripped off in the dad department. Most days, you hardly even think about it. Sure, there’s that dull ache in your psyche, but you can usually ignore it now. You’ve taught yourself how. Just like you’ve taught yourself all manner of things.

Does it help you to realize you’re not alone? I’m sure you know that already. Even if your friends haven’t shown you the scabs on their memories, you have seen it in the culture. You’ve seen it in the cynical presentation of fathers on TV. When was the last time you saw a good one? A really good one? My friends and I used to pose this question all the time. Why are TV dads so distant and aloof? Why are they incapable of being serious? Why can’t they, for the life of them, offer one piece of solid advice that their wives do not have to come sweep up afterward?

Cliff Huxtable (a.k.a. Bill Cosby in The Cosby Show) was the shiniest of exceptions. He was always caring, but firm. He knew his kids inside and out, and he did not let them walk all over him. He was smarter than they were, but always deft enough to validate them, and guide them toward better wisdom. He was never intimidated by his wife’s graceful brilliance, but welcomed it and complimented her with his own keen insights.

We loved Cliff. He was a fantasy father for the millions who did not have one, and an uncle, at least, for those who did.

But I can hear you objecting: “Yeah, but look what happened! Bill Cosby turned out to be a—-”

Yes. Yes, I know. Another father, letting us all down…

Listen, this is a crappy day. I’m not going to try to cheer you up, or tell you that you shouldn’t feel the way you do. That resentment… that frustration… those are real pains, and you have a right to feel them. Your dad had a job to do, and it was more than just helping you into the world. He was a sub-creator, and a sub-caretaker. He was duty bound, in everything, represent the One who brought all of us into the world: to bandage your knee; to hold you close; to listen. Oh, how he should have listened! But he didn’t.

This throbbing pain that rises to the surface on a day like today—this reason you want to stay home from church and mute any reference to “father’s day” on Twitter—it is a wound not easily healed. Even Dr. Huxtable, when he was still squeaky clean, could not do it. You cannot sub-lease a pop culture stand-in and live vicariously through his child actors. Fantasy only has the power to distract, not to fix. No matter how you bury your pain, you will get the same temporary result. It will resurface.

There is only One with the power to soothe those old wounds.

He is the One who your father was supposed to represent. And now, even that title makes it difficult for you to trust Him. How can you call God “Father,” and why would He even want you to?

Friend, I cannot explain why things worked out the way they did, but I can assure you of one thing: this original Father of yours is different than the one who hurt you. He has wept with you in your loneliness. He felt every fear, ached with every disappointment, burned with you in the midst of every searing-hot betrayal that branded your soul and convinced you that you were an orphan.

But you were not an orphan.

I will not try to push you toward Him today. I will simply tell you that He waits for you on His porch swing with tenderness and feasting. And through His gentle embrace, He will give you reason to trust again.

 

photo credit: Memory Lane via photopin (license)

To Know What Would Have Happened

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I will spare you the melodrama and tell you plainly what happened last weekend. It was one of the scenarios parents of autistic kids fear most. For the first time in two years, Jack ran off.

We were having a perfect Saturday. The kids were playing outside in our freshly cut lawn, Sara was making lunch, I was writing fiction, and Josh Garrels was crooning in the background about “Home.” Then, my phone rang. It was my buddy Aaron.

“Dude, I just got Jack! He was running on the other side of 6th street.”

I bolted up and, for an instant, found myself scanning the room for him against all logic, as if my friend had found the wrong kid. Because Jack wasn’t gone. He couldn’t be gone. He was in the backyard…

“Jack got out!” I yelled for my wife to hear.

They were five blocks away. I ran outside to cross the street, but I had to wait for an inexplicable line of traffic. On my honor, there were more cars than I have ever seen on this street. And Jack had just crossed it…

Sara grabbed the van and picked me up two blocks down. We drove the remaining three blocks and found the two of them waiting across another busy street at a fenced in playground next to some basketball courts. Jack was standing atop the slide, shirtless as always, wearing elastic pants that were sagging halfway down his bum. He was clearly proud of himself.

“I didn’t know where else to bring him,” Aaron said. “He was just running down the sidewalk.”

“Shhh. Quiet,” Jack was scripting when he saw me. It was a line from Monster’s University, his latest obsession, but it was also a clue into what he had just done. He had sneaked away on purpose, just like Mike and Sully in the Monster’s library, and he thought it was funny.

We promptly installed an extra noisy alarm on our front door, put a new lock on the back gate, and have been scouring the internet for GPS bracelets—the kind that don’t come off without a fight. We also figured out where he was headed that day: to a house where he had recently seen a DVD case that he wanted (from the first Monsters movie, of course). He was running in the right direction, but he had another nine blocks to go.

Two words dominate a parent’s mind in moments like that: “What if?”

What if he had taken a different street? What if Aaron hadn’t been walking through his front yard to spot him? What if some creeper saw him? What if the drivers on 6th had not seen him? What would have happened?

And then I think of the words CS Lewis spoke through Aslan the lion: “To know what would have happened, child?… No. Nobody is ever told that.”

I have often read that scene and wondered if it was true. Is no one ever told? And is there not some benefit in visiting the specters of alternate history?

This week, my mind is settled. No, there is no benefit. Speculative horrors are an inevitable prison for those prone to worry. Negative fantasies—future or past—leave no room for gratitude or peace. When I do anything more than acknowledge them, I cannot stop and take a deep breath. Even the happiest, sun-shiniest days become tainted with two concerns over which I have no control: things that might have happened, and things that still might. Some day. Any day now.

So how do we recovering pessimists vanquish these ghosts? By focusing on what actually is.

This story of Jack’s escape, it is, truly, a happy story! My son is safe. He went on his own adventure. He crossed two busy streets without incident, and just so happened to walk by the house of my one of my dear friend who already knows and loves him, and who just so happened to be working in his front yard.

I must take note of these positive plot twists, and acknowledge that Providence Himself must have been watching over him that day, coaxing him to safety, whispering, “Shhh, quiet. You know what? I love you, son.”