Lynchburg Living

"Just a Thought..."

By Jon Dupin

Is being an active father really that big of a deal?

Maybe I’m naive, but I wanted to be a father years before I actually held my firstborn child. Picture Mufasa and Simba on Pride Rock, with the tribal music drumming across the savannah, and the medicine monkey holding the child towards heaven. Well, to risk sappiness, that’s about how I envisioned my daughter’s delivery into this wild and hopeful world. It was like a nurse handed this little person to me and said, “Here, grow this girl up to forge a great destiny and change the world.”

My response?

“Ah, how about showing me how to buckle this car seat, first.”

Kidding aside, this is where the father instinct first emerged in me. While in college, my fiance and I were together on a study tour in Israel, so being there with her made wedding plans and domestic discussions a daily topic-”Look there’s the Garden of Gethsemane; okay, now back to china patterns.” Our team spent the afternoon at the Temple Mound in Jerusalem in the usual fair and we eventually rounded out the experience at the Western Wall, or the Wailing Wall. There, I saw this Hasidic man in his 30′s sporting a wool suit, bib-length facial hair and curly side locks. He was on his knees, but he was not praying like the masses. Instead, his wide brim hat was eye level with his 8-year-old boy and he pointed out towards the worshipers at the Wall. What was he saying? I thought. Why was that boy so entranced with every sound wave from his father’s voice?

Unexpectedly, all depth-of-field faded and my eyes could only focus on this paternal snapshot-father, son and blurry temple ruins. The entire Biblical epic-patriarch’s blessing, rights of passage, handing down God’s wisdom and love to another generation-was a pop-up book before me, so tangible and suspended. Honestly, this odd emotion, one so much different than falling for a woman and asking for her hand in marriage, stopped me cold. It was some kind of thirst.

Maybe this was the other side of the coin? You resolve to be a husband-Will you marry me? -and then one day it tricks you into wanting to be a father, too-Guess what? We’re pregnant! At least, that’s what happened to me, because I realized then and there that I wanted to be like that dad near the temple. Someday, I wanted to do what he did; cast a vision and plant a dream in my own child’s heart. What I didn’t understand then is that such scenes, like the one at the Wall, would happen over and over again as a dad.

Now, rush ahead through my wedding day, first year of matrimony, wife holding a positive pregnancy test, daughter in my arms and then meet me at my little girl’s bedroom door when she was 8 years old. I entered the room and heard her crying. Her back was to the door and she stared through a double window into the world outside. I sat on the bed, put my arm around her shoulder and asked, “You okay?”

“Not really,” she replied.

“Mom said you had a tough day at school.”

“Yes, sir,” she agreed. Then, she reluctantly began to share a story of betrayal: Two girls at school enticed her to gather up some gossip about another friend of hers. She took the bait, leveraged her friend’s trust and gave the girl’s confession away to the two plotters. A hapless Judas, she soon realized how she was used to harm someone else, so she crawled deep into the guilt cavern that was also her bedroom.

When her confession was over, I swabbed some of her tears with my hand and then some unfamiliar voice broke out of me to speak, “You see that world out there?” I pointed through the glass and she affirmed with a nod. “You’re going to meet all kinds of girls throughout your life. And, you’ll want to compare yourself and compete with them all. You’ll want that girl’s hair and another girl’s clothes. Then, if you continue that way, you’ll grow up and envy some girls entire life. But … don’t.”

I paused to see if she was getting it. She seemed intent, so I kept going.

“Because, that will make you resent and mistrust all girls, and make you struggle to ever have meaningful friendships with them, to love and confide in them like you were meant to.” The words just kept coming and now more fervent, “Today, you fell into a common trap. You were used by some girls, because all of you were jealous of another. And now you feel bad, don’t you?”

She shook her head and sniffled. Then I finished, “But, I don’t believe you’re really that girl. In fact, I believe you’re the one who’s going to face those dragons and stand against them wherever you see them. Right?”

Silence.

Finally, she smiled and appeared to embrace both the allegory and the call. That’s when she granted a side hug and said, “Right. I want be that kinda’ woman.” Several minutes passed and we shifted to some 8-year-old level stuff, but I knew we were both given a gift that day-the gift of fatherhood.

Today, 11 years have passed since her birth and now my baby girl is in middle school. And, where I once held her in my forearm, she now runs and leaps into my wings. I collapse them around her, sense the warmth of her face against my own and it’s still like the first moment she was granted to me. When I finally land her on her feet, I get reminded again of that scene by the Western Wall and how being a dad is a mighty role to fulfill, one that I sometimes botch, but will never bolt from. Never. I’m in for life, casting vision and planting dreams.