“A Father Forgets”

By: Livingston Larned

comments and “My Prayer” By: Jeffery Moore

Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily, I came to your bedside.

These are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.

***I’m Sorry***
At breakfast I found fault too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, “Good-bye, Daddy!” and I frowned, and said in reply, “Hold your shoulders back!”

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your socks. I humiliated you before your friends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Socks were expensive, and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, son, from a father!

***Spontaneous Love***
Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in, timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. “What is it you want?” I snapped. You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither…and then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.

***Wrong Measuring Stick***
Well, son, it was shortly afterward that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, reprimanding-this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. It was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years. And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt here, ashamed!

***I Will***
It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy. I will chum with you, suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual, “He is nothing but a boy, a little boy!”

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your bed, I see that you are still a little boy. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.

***Jeffery’s comments***
When I first read this, tears welled up in my eyes. How many times have I taken my own boys and their youthfulness for granted. Often, especially because of the rush of everything like work, paying bills, doing this and doing that, we often forget that our children, our gifts from God, are young and learning, and can’t possibly know what we do. In their youth they are learning and experiencing what we have already learned and experienced, and our role, our duty, as their parent, is to teach them life’s lessons in a manner that teaches them truth revealed by our undying love. Only through truth and love can we ever hope to be successful in teaching them.

**My Prayer**
Heavenly Father, I give you the Glory and Praise for being the perfect Father and giving me the only role model worth following. As I nurture and watch over my children, I proclaim you are their ultimate Father, and I am only their Daddy, their keeper to bring them up in honor of you. Father give me the strength to teach my little ones to love and honor and respect and follow you completely. Give me the ability to bring them up in love and truth so they may grow up and become successful men of God, serving you rather than men. Father pour out your Spirit on me and my little ones, so we may be like mirrors, a reflection of you. Give me the wisdom and courage to do these things.

In Jesus name, Amen.