How do people count their blessings? Many people count them by the number of dollars in their bank account. Others think of them as their name on a wooden plaque on their door displaying a title and some even think about them as a sum of their possessions. Blessings come in many shapes and sizes; they depend on your age, your background, and even your gender. Mine come in smiles.
I sit across from my living room while my son and his dad sit down and watch a movie about superheroes and I realize that to my boy, his father is his hero. Damian and his father have a particular relationship. They sit in front of the TV and not say a word to each other but every few minutes you see them looking at each other, smiling in complicity.
During summertime, they go outside and work together on the yard and talk about any thing and everything. Damian asks his dad questions as if his dad had all of the answers in the world and Tony tries to explain to his son the world as he sees it and in doing so, lays down the path for his son to walk through later on in life.
They play video games together, they color and paint together. They are a wonder in the kitchen as father brings down the whole spice rack, not an easy feat, and introduces his son to the millions of combinations and together, they discover the joy of concocting their own moments.
When Tony hits the road, Damian comes home and calls his dad to tell him about something exciting about school and to ask when he will be home. Damian makes sure that he calls his dad to say good night and is the first one to check on the weather to make sure that his dad’s path is clear (Hey! He had to get something from me…)
Tony talks to his son about animals and Damian thinks about a father and son team that will travel the country treating animals in their mobile vet hospital. They talk about train sets and swing sets, cars and boats and together they build projects and dreams that transcend reality and still create the cohesiveness of a father and son relationship.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, he loves his girls. Victoria is a source of pride and a buddy to gang up on mom with and Gabriela is, well, Gabriela is the sweetie. He would do anything and everything for his girls and is extremely protective of them. But like every other man, he realizes that they are little women and that women in general are to be loved but not necessarily understood.
But Damian is different. When Damian was a baby and he was more of a mommy’s boy, there was still an understanding that the minor interactions between them were the groundwork for when they reached this level of their relationship. As Damian grew, he gravitated more towards his dad and now I am happy to say that he will run after his dad and involve him in projects of cars, farms and life in general and leave me behind with a kiss and assurance that he loves me but wants to “hang out” with dad.
The role of a father in a child’s life is paramount. In our society a father is often looked at as an assistant’s role to the mother’s and the bond is not encouraged and nurtured. What must it feel like for a father to know that his son grows up without him, without the advice that he wishes his father had given him? We know that all too well. Many men deal with being absent from their children’s life, many men deal with being away because of location, legalities or pride and misunderstandings. Regardless of the reasons why, as a society, we fail to understand that children need that love and interaction that is so unique to a father. We fail to honor the role of a father and therefore we raise our children without teaching them the true value of a paternal figure.
As a I sit at my computer desk and I look out to the couch and I see my son look up at his dad and smile , I realize that my son will learn and accept his father as a man, I see that my husband will learn to see himself with compassion through his son’s eyes and I see that together, they will build a friendship that is everlasting. I count my blessings in smiles.
No comments:
Post a Comment