Capturing a dad’s loving, caring and worry
By Sally Friedman
In the photograph, a man without a trace of silver in his auburn hair is leaning over a small girl. She is pouting. He is earnestly saying something to her with a look of concern on his face.
The issue may have been a broken crayon or a broken heart, but whatever it was, that man was right there to help.
That photo is fading now, and the man in the photograph has not a trace of that auburn hair. It’s gone to white.
Still, that photo of our first daughter, Jill, and her dad, is one of my treasures. In it, there is a microcosm of my husband, the father — all the devotion, the worry, the care giving, the love…
I think that one of the sweetest pleasures of my life has been to watch the man I married when we were both kids turn into a magnificent father, and now a grandfather.
I watched that man bring to his daughters — three of them — the kind of love that gives roots — and wings. The perfect duality.
And in a household that was always frenetic, I never really had time to fully absorb the gift Jill, Amy and Nancy were getting.
Fathers sometimes seem LIKE the Rodney Dangerfield of family life. Mother’s Day is a commercial festival of hype. Father’s Day is more restrained. Less gushed over.
Mothers are sainted beings with angel wings. Fathers are rumpled guys who are best left to watch from the sidelines.
My husband straddles both the earlier generation and the new one.
He certainly loved his daughters and worried about them. But he was not the major on-site parent — that was my role.
Yet he still managed to carve out deeply meaningful relationships with our girls that gave them comfort, support and the wonderful notion that men can be tender and sentimental. That the best men, in fact, are.
When the tensions in our female dynasty reached the boiling point, I would sometimes retreat from the fray, with the sound of slammed doors resonating. That’s when Vic would step in as referee, quietly soothing ruffled feathers and damaged feelings with his calm, steady presence.
I sometimes think our household would have combusted without him.
I know this father wonders where those years have gone, just as I do.
Now it’s a quick cell phone call from a daughter on the run. Or a semi-breathless visit with a daughter, her husband and yes her kids. Amazing to become a grandfather of seven while your back was turned.
I have so many much-loved photos now. My husband surrounded by his grandkids. My husband at our granddaughter’s high school graduation. My husband with his three grown daughters on special occasions.
But one I cherish is a bit blurry. In it, a white-haired man is leaning over a small girl — his youngest granddaughter. She has a fistful of colored pens in her hand.
Carly is an artist with a unique vision of the universe.
So what that the sky is pale green, and flowers grow upside-down? Or that the birds she fashions have wings in odd places.
Her grandfather sees her as the new Chagall. And Carly loves that.
When there are mild tempests, as there inevitably are with young artists, he encourages his granddaughter.
But generally, he just stands by. And that’s how Carly likes it with her grandfather. If he’s there, she’s content.
My husband seems to know instinctively that the older boys, the grandsons, need something very different, something loose and easy and tinged always with humor.
These giants with deep voices know that their grandfather will still undoubtedly warn them to be careful even if they are simply throwing a ball around the yard.
He issued the same warnings to their mothers, who alternately fumed — and basked — in the concern.
So yes, Father’s Day season for this clan is not just about a father. It’s also about the father of their mothers. It sounds complicated, yet it’s so simple.
Wrapped up in one guy is this funny, caring, sensible, sensitive protector. Our daughters know it, and now, so does the next generation.
They all understand by now who has spent years, decades offering them his sheltering, protective embrace.
And from oldest to youngest, I think they know how blessed they are to have that.
Reach Sally Friedman at pinegander@aol.com.