"I Found My Dad"

“I would have settled… but I found my Dad and you wouldn’t let me settle.” I have never heard more precious words uttered in all of my life. To say that I was touched, moved, and quieted with a sense of awe would be a feeble effort in describing my emotion when I received her words. Life has given me ‘children’ to love, nurture, respect, and encourage. She is a daughter to make the heart of any dad swell with pride. Her father made the conscious choice, even before her birth, to not be her dad. I have learned, over the years, that fatherhood is one thing… being Dad, quite another.

Painful experience has taught me that a dad/child relationship is hinged upon the willing choice of both participants to engage in the experience… fatherhood, of course, does not offer the option of exercise of will for its relationship to be established. One is a genetic given, the other a free will election made by both participants. Having lost my “Dadhood” with my daughter by birth as the result of her choice, I am aware of the tangible reality of this truth. Likewise, enjoying free-will inclusion into the lives of several special people (brought to my life by Life) who now know and address me as “Dad”, has brought to my life the reality of the fruitful workings of that responsibility and blessing.

Hence, I had occasion to be discussing (actually… I was listening to the effervescing of a heart erupting with volcanic joy and ecstasy) my Life-Daughter’s newly discovered love. We were reflecting on the pressures brought to bear, by all of life’s forces, to just simply “sell out” our yearnings and deepest desires in favor of “settling” and accepting something far less than the ideal romantic vision of our hearts. It was at this point in our conversation that she voiced the words quoted earlier. “I would have settled… but I found my Dad and you wouldn’t let me settle.”

So why do I share this little bit of personal experience with you, Dear Friend? Perhaps because I know that you too are beset daily, even hourly, with the pressure to “simply settle” for something less than your desire.

And I offer this small (in the universally cosmic scheme of things… but monumental in the lives of the individuals involved) illustration of eminent possibility as an encouragement to (in the words of the scriptures) “wait upon [Life]”… “Be still and know.” If you have the option at your disposal to either move ahead with less or wait for more… please grant me the grace to offer my humble suggestion that you hasten not, but allow Life to bring to you that which your heart desires. It can happen… My Daughter now knows!



IMAGES (top to bottom) Tony Harwood-Jones and Ariel; Earl and Perry Robinson from Fathers and Sons; Fatherson; Father and Son Fish