Introduction
The story of fathers and sons is every man's story . . . and a story that every woman participates in. It is the story of love, courage, mentoring, sacrifice, challenge, loss, pain, and redemption. It is every story: the first-time father holding his newborn son; the baseball games, bike rides, hikes; the tension, the fights, and disappointments. It is a father and son, now adults, carving out a new relationship. It is family growing as new generations come. It is the son at his father's grave—and so tragically, sometimes the father at his son's grave. Throughout it all, even in the face of difficulties and loss, the son carries his father within, as an image of who men are, as someone to be just like, or as someone to be different from. The father's impact on his son carries on for generations as each new father tries to take the best his father gave him and pass it on to his son. At the same time, that new father struggles to find his own way, to be his own man. And so boys become men, men become fathers, fathers help mold their sons, and the cycle continues.
No perfect father or perfect son exists, but everyone carries the profound importance of the father-son relationship within. For those of us who are men, we have all lived deeply and closely as fathers and sons, learning wise lessons and learning hard lessons. We have known ourselves as sons, building our lives in ways great and small around our fathers (or the many father substitutes that play this all-important role). We remember ourselves as boys and know how we loved our fathers. We know when we made them proud, and we know when we didn't. We know what it is like to carry our fathers within and to become the best men we can be. For men who have had sons, we continue that cycle, giving it our best shot, knowing only too well that we sometimes fall short of our own ideal. We never stop loving our sons, and we always see, just a little bit, our own selves in their lives.
For those of us who are women, we have seen in our brothers and fathers and grandfathers, in our sons and husbands, in our friends and strangers, what a father and son are. We know them at their best, and, as we know ourselves likewise, we know them in their imperfection. And throughout our lives with fathers and sons, we see how special that relationship is. We also find our place in it. We are the wives and mothers, sisters and daughters, grandmothers and great-grandmothers who walk side by side with the fathers and sons we love.
Gathering the stories of so many fathers and sons has been a gift as we watch our own children leave the nest and begin a new generation of families that will carry us within them as the future continues to unfold. Our thanks to fathers and sons throughout the world for doing their best to make the world a better place. It is our deepest wish that all people might live in peace.
Dorothy Firman and Ted Slawski
This Magic Moment
A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.
Carl Sandburg
I never imagined myself as a parent until the moment, twenty-four years ago, that my son was born. But then, I never believed in magic either. I knew that my wife wanted children, but I couldn't quite understand why. She wanted four or five, I seem to remember. I do know that it was a big number—big enough that I didn't take her seriously.
Eventually, my wife prevailed and I agreed to try one, like we were considering potato chips. Once the decision was made, I pushed it aside. After all, nothing is certain. One of us could be sterile. If not, it still might take years to conceive. Why borrow trouble? Why, indeed?
Talk about miscalculation. It took us no time at all—a couple of months at most from decision to conception. When my wife became ill in the middle of Das Boot and rushed out of the theater, I experienced a sinking feeling. And it had nothing to do with the fate of the German submarine. I guess I slipped into denial after that. Throughout her pregnancy, even when fatherhood was imminent, the idea remained far-fetched—at best, abstract. But isn't magic always that way?
My denial notwithstanding, things were different around our place. My wife cast an ever larger and more awkward shadow when she stood outside with the dogs. Early every Saturday morning for weeks, we stumbled off to Lamaze class, where we dutifully sat on the floor, surrounded by pillows, and breathed together. I silently hoped that I didn't look as silly as I felt. Every time I checked, there was something new (and miniature) in the spare bedroom. The evidence was piling up, but I was trying hard not to notice.
On February 21, 1983, my wife made her final scheduled visit to the doctor. He assured her that the baby would arrive in two weeks—right on schedule. Yeah, right. At 5:00 the next morning, my wife awoke with a start. On those rare occasions when I had faced reality, however fleetingly, it always happened this way—late in the night when the fog of sleep was thickest. Even as it dawned on me what was happening, I tried to resist. 'Okay,' I said, 'I'll start some coffee and call the doctor.' No, I didn't have it backward. I couldn't have a baby without caffeine. The doctor told me what I wanted to hear. No rush. Have your coffee, get dressed, and get to the hospital.
We left for the hospital by 6:00. It was still dark, and a cold rain was falling. It made for a gloomy drive, but things could have been much worse. This was February in Iowa. We were lucky it wasn't snowing. Then I remembered: it was February 22—Washington's birthday. I wondered out loud that if we had a boy, perhaps we should name him George. I was only teasing, but my wife wasn't the least bit amused. We had long ago agreed upon David Thomas and Sarah Elizabeth as names and that was that. I was about to protest when I remembered the two words my best man had told me always worked with wives, and I repeated them. 'Yes, dear.'
At the hospital, someone whisked my wife off to a room while I stayed behind to check her in. It was early, and the reception area and adjacent waiting room were nearly deserted. As I filled out form after form, each repeating the same questions, I made a mental list of things I needed to do. I couldn't believe I was thinking so clearly—and after a single cup of coffee. I still didn't get it!
By the time I had finished with the forms, my wife was settled into a room upstairs. I hurried up to find that there was no need to hurry. The contractions had just begun and were far apart. I wouldn't be a father for a while. Things moved slowly through the morning, and I wondered if this wasn't a false alarm. But misdirection is the magician's ally. Then in the early afternoon, my wife's blood pressure spiked. It was obvious in the way the nurses unceremoniously shooed me away that they were alarmed. Shortly, the doctor hurried into the room. As I stood helplessly off to the side, a small drama unfolded in the cramped room.
The doctor gave my wife a shot to speed things along, and the nurses wheeled her away, with me trailing anxiously behind. A fifth wheel, I thought. Inside the delivery room, I stood beside my wife, holding her hand and encouraging her. The birth was over in no time, its quickness startling me after long hours of prelude. I looked up at a clock mounted on the far wall. It was 3:30—and in that precise moment, I became a believer. In magic. A nurse had wrapped our new son in a blanket and passed him to me. Our son! Our. Son. I wanted to prolong the moment, fearing that the magic, like time, was ephemeral. I shouldn't have worried. I kissed him gently on the forehead. Over the years, I must have repeated that ritual fifty thousand times: when he woke up in the morning, at odd times during the day, and before I tucked him in at night.
In that instant, I was transformed so suddenly and so completely that nothing could explain it except magic. This little person I held had been in the world only a precious few minutes, but I already loved him in a way I didn't know was possible—that I could scarcely comprehend. What was that if not magic? There could be no other explanation.
Twenty-four years later, nothing has happened to change my mind. If anything, I am even more convinced. Our son has grown up and moved away, but the magic remains my constant companion. It's homesteaded in my heart, you see.
Tom Miller
Father's Day
For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.
William Blake
'Hey, Bubba,' I shout to my three-year-old son from the couch in my family room. 'C'mere a minute.'
At once, I hear the familiar and rapid thump, thump, thump as he comes bounding into the room, a bent paper towel roll in one hand and a fistful of crayons in the other.
'Yeah, Dad?' he inquires as I pull him onto my lap.
'Mom is taking your sisters to go buy jeans, so you and I get 'Special Time' together at home!'
'Just us?' he asks with wide-eyed surprise and a big smile.
'Just us,' I confirm. 'What do you want to do?' I ask, expecting a request for some variation of crash-'em-up wrestling or playing with his little plastic farm animals.
Spencer stands up and thinks for a moment, tapping his finger on his chin—mimicking my gesture. A huge smile erupts on his face as he rushes out of the room, only to appear moments later with a large, half-unraveled roll of bubble-wrap spilling out of his arms and dragging on the floor.
'You want to pop bubbles?' I ask, confused.
'And watch a movie!' he adds enthusiastically.
Spencer turns and rummages through the DVDs like a pirate on a treasure hunt. He emerges moments later triumphantly waving a copy of the animated hit The Incredibles high in the air.
'Okay,' I say, smiling. He loves the movie and fancies himself 'Dash,' the young son of Mr. Incredible, with incredible powers of his own. When he and I play ...
