I was asked by my
eldest daughter to ponder these questions, a set of questions any of us parents
or children could answer before it’s too late. We both saw it as a golden
opportunity. Our encouragement is for this to pique your own curiosity.
1. What’s your happiest
memory of us?
My happiest memories
of my children are the times they laughed with and loved each other, like times
in the backyard or at the park when they would run around and play (remember
the Monster Game?), or when they imagined living together or close to each
other or spending time with each other as adults (and now that’s a reality). Times
they just got lost in their own sense of enjoyment with and of each other.
I’m a very fortunate
father that I have three adult daughters and one son who is still a child who
all deeply love and respect each other, who hurt when a sibling is hurting.
This is the father’s wish; that your kids are genuinely sisters and brothers
with each other. Another happiest memory is of us pulling together in crisis,
and how supported I was when I was devastated by divorce nearly 21 years ago,
and how much my children—11, 8, and 5 at the time—got me through those dark
early months, and how we re-invented our relationships as father and children.
2. What were those first
few days of fatherhood like?
As three of my four
children can attest, being parents now, those first few days in each of my
children’s lives were such a polarised mix of the best of joy and amazement
combined with dreadful fear that I wouldn’t be enough for the responsibility of
fatherhood. It’s that feeling that things have really changed now. And changed
in such a significant way that there is no turning back, not that you would
want to, but for comfort’s sake sometimes you perhaps would! Those earliest
days as a father to my eldest daughter, I just could not believe how this one
little baby had won my heart so incredibly and unfathomably.
Time is a funny thing;
I can go back to that hospital theatre room and remember like it was yesterday,
the birth of my first daughter. There is no drug on the planet (and I have
taken a few of them in younger years) that even comes close to the euphoria
that I experienced when she was born—(when all my children were born, apart
from Nathanael who was stillborn)—when I cut her cord, and when I held her for
that first long hour as they were stitching her mother up. All those days are
very vivid in my memory still, and I would go back in a flash for a 5-minute
sojourn. These memories fill me with the greatest joy.
3. What have you learned
about love and what has it taught you?
The most penetrating
lesson I have learned about love is that you don’t know what you’ve got until
it’s gone. And sometimes you don’t know how important things are until it’s too
late.
What I’ve learned is
that nothing compares to love; no achievement, no possessions, no approval of
others even comes close. Without love life is meaningless, and we know this
when we are supposed to experience love and there is a void, because life
without love is a void.
Losing my first
marriage taught me most about love and prepared me for what I really
desperately wanted, and that was to be married again and to make family the
absolute centrepiece of my life. Most of all I know this about love: it is a
verb. Love is truly about service, about giving, about kindness, and patience,
and the fruits of the Spirit.
4. When was the moment
you felt most proud of me?
This is such a hard
question because there are so many moments that could qualify for answering
this one. I have felt most proud of you when you were the kindest person and I
got to witness that kindness as it was received by another person, whether it was
a family member or someone else, and particularly when I can see that the
kindness was coming from you, without any input from me. There are many
memories of you as a child like this, and these carry through to today.
There have been key
times of achievement where I have been astonishingly proud of you, especially
when you studied to become a vet nurse, and succeeded in that field for years.
I was also so proud of you that day when you said to me you were making your own
decisions around your life partner, and you had the confidence in our
relationship to assert your right to make your own decision. And of course,
I’ve been proud of you every step of the way in becoming the mother you are
today, through the losses and tragic moments of waiting patiently for your
beautiful baby, and then to see all this come to pass. I can assure you my
darling I have a very, very full heart.
5. What do you want or
wish most for your kids?
It’s always been the
same answer to this question, I want you to be happy, grateful with your life,
doing what brings you fulfilment and contentedness, and hopefully into the mix,
the things you want pivot around family, and I can say with all my heart, I am
so proud to be a dad who can see this working in all my kids’ lives.
All I wish for (and
this is true in all my kids) is that they contribute to society and are a
blessing in others’ lives. I could not be prouder that my kids are living this
out.
6. What’s the nicest
thing I’ve ever done for you?
Without question, the
nicest thing you’ve ever done for me is consider me, praise me regularly, think
of me in so many ways, and to allow me to be your father.
I can remember a time
when you were 17 and wanted to go your own way, and it was about the only time
that I had to put my foot down, or even needed to, and you respected me,
whether it was begrudgingly so or not is beside the point.
The nicest thing you
ever did for me was to respect me every step of the way, but I sense this was
always a reciprocation, because I always felt you were worthy of respect for
the beautiful heart you possess.
7. What’s one thing you
want me always to remember when you’re gone?
Remember that poem you
read at Gran’s funeral, that is what I want you to remember when I’m gone: that
I’m not really gone, but I’m still with you in spirit, and one day
you’ll get to come to be with me and others you have lost along the way.
I want you to remember
that God is for you and can never be against you. I want you to know and relate
with God, because without God life is meaningless and lacks any sense of
purpose.
God is in life and
life is in God. Beginning, middle and end, and everything between. And the only
pity is we sometimes only see this or recognise this when God is all we have.
In the end, in death, God is all we have. Please remember this.
IMAGE: Photos of my eldest
daughter and I in 1993 on the left and 1997 on the right.
