“What was silent in the father speaks in the son, and often I found in the son the unveiled secret of the father.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
Fresh off family Father’s Day festivities, a man comes to reflect on big themes: history, mortality and legacy.
Cycle-of-life tropes, all the way.
Or maybe it’s just this man. I’m sure many others are content to simply try on the new tie and enjoy the big day free of nagging.
It was an emotional day. We’re getting older. I’m now middle-aged and the fathers in our life are pushing a bit too close to the average life expectancy of a Canadian man. Neil Young’s “Old Man” played an internal soundtrack to my sense of looming loss. I quietly wept the tears of time.
I’ve got a complicated relationship with my old man. I sure love him, yet there are a few too many unspoken truths or unresolved conversation points. This reality has inevitably shaped how I relate to my son. Never a day passes that I don’t tell him I love him.
I’ve never known a life of emotional intimacy with my dad. This is not to say that we don’t connect meaningfully, only that we do so in a roundabout way that allows us to bond without getting too close to the burning sun of pure openness.
For me and my old man, golf (or hockey, or baseball, or politics, or international affairs, or any other number of topics) is a useful cloak of connectivity. We use it as cover to bond. It helps shape and sustain a bonding moment without acknowledging that we’re having a bonding moment.
Now that I’m older and wiser, I recognize that these seemingly superficial conversations are actually anything but. They are a metaphor for our overall relationship, with all of its layers of human complexity.
As a younger man, I mocked this or treated it with contempt. For someone who wears his heart on his sleeve as I do, it drove me nuts that we never spoke of love, or hurt, or dreams. Philosophical differences aside, I wondered why our relationship seemed distant and skin-deep.
Was I looking for something more out of this? Was this typical of father-son dynamics?
As it turns out, I was missing the messages. My dad’s love speaks in deliberate and tangible actions, not words.
While I was always seeking the “I love you” or “I’m proud of you, son,” I was ignoring the strong symbols and meaning of his many fatherly gestures. Forget about the value and strength of words: the actions speak for themselves.
The early-morning car rides to distant hockey rinks.
The quiet and demonstrated support of my aptitude and interests.
The impromptu briefing on the inner workings of the US Congress.
The insistence on the value of education.
The quiet drive down the street of his childhood home the day he buried his mother.
The wry grin and slight head-shaking I’d get as I described a failed initiative.
His tendency to show a poker face instead of scorn when I displeased him.
All of these I now realize are an ongoing barometer of paternal love.
I visited Greece a few years back and found myself transfixed by a poster affixed to the wall of a small café in a remote village. The art on the poster was clever, featuring realistic sketches of a man through the entire lifecycle, from his swaddling first moments, through all phases of adult life (school, career, marriage, fatherhood) all the way to his final days, stooped over and near-forgotten by the world.
This poster broke me: the accompanying captions were in Greek, but the sentiment rang true in any language: I too am mortal and the only thing that really matters is the love I’ve shared and left behind for my family. I too will return to the cosmic dust from whence I originated.
It was a real revelation. Even though the moment stung, I came home with a new approach to my relationship with my dad.
Instead of looking for words, which are fleeting, I’ve learned to see the true meaning behind the time we spend together and the experiences we share.
The rest of the room hears him say: “How about them Blue Jays, Brett?”
I hear: “You’re one helluva son, Brett.”
Happy Father’s Day, Dad.
