FATHER FORGETS
Listen Son, I am saying this as you lie
asleep, one little hand crumpled under your cheek and blonde curls sticky over
your wet forehead. I have broken 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.
Guilty, I came to your bedside. There are things which I am
thinking, son; I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for
school because you gave your face a mere dab with the 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.
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. As you started off to play and I made for my
train, you turned and waved a hand and called, "Goodbye, Daddy!" I frowned,
and said in reply, "Hold your shoulders back!".
Then it began all over again late this
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, from a father.
Do you remember later, when I was reading
in the library, how you came timidly, with sort of a hurt look in your eyes? I
glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption; you hesitated at the
door. "What is it that you want?" I snapped.
You said nothing, but ran across in one
tempestuous plunge, threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, your small
arms tightened with affection that God had set blooming in your heart, which
even neglect could not wither. Then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.
Well, Son, it was shortly afterwards 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, or 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 you. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.
There is so much that was good, fine and true in your character.
The little heart of yours was as big as the dawn itself over the hills. This
was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night.
Nothing else mattered tonight. Son, I have come to your beside in the darkness,
I have knelt there, ashamed!
It is a feeble atonement; I know that you
would not understand these things which I have told you in the waking hours.
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 baby. Yesterday you were in your mother's arms, your head on her
shoulder. I have asked too much, too much!
Source: How To Win Friends and Influence
People (Dale Carnegie)
