Friday, June 15, 2012

A Dad in Full

When my dad died two years ago (two years ago!) one of the things that gave me solace was that my sister and I were fully formed by the end of his life. Families, careers, communities, plans. We were established. By living to see his children into their 30s and with families of our own, my dad had in some sense "made it." He left behind five grandchildren, and it seems likely that that's how many there will be. So he saw an accurate glimpse of the future of his family.

Of course, that's complete crap, and lately I see that we're all growing and changing in ways I hadn't anticipated. There are whole lifetimes unfolding in which my dad would have been a major player had things been different. But it wasn't until the past few weeks that the fallacy of his seeing something to completion really dawned on me. I realized recently that I've entered some new phase of fatherhood- and adulthood- and I am only just figuring out what's happening and where we go from here.

My children are still quite young at two, five, and eight. Parenting the younger two consists mostly of doing the same things my wife and I have been doing ever since we became parents, but the oldest one is growing into a new phase of life. He is finishing second grade next week, which I realize still makes him closer to babyhood than adolescence, but he is old enough to have had some real life experiences and lessons now. Old enough to have felt real disappointment and real triumph. Old enough to dream about his future beyond the standard firefighter or baseball player dreams. He has what count now as "old friends." He has in some ways become a member of our tight-knit community independent of his family. His security still derives from Mom and Dad (he dropped the Y months ago), but he also has his own identity.

As he changes, what he needs from us is changing, and we're following him into a new and bigger universe of people and possibilities. In time the same thing will happen with the younger kids, too.

I now know that I was not fully formed when I lost my dad, I was just really steeped in a particular phase of life and had yet to move into the next one. In fact, ten or fifteen years from now I also won't be fully formed. There is more to figure out, more to accomplish, and certainly more my kids will need me to be.

Even at the end of his life, my dad also wasn't finished growing as a person. Perhaps nobody ever truly is. And now that I see how much more is ahead of me, I sure would have wanted to benefit from the wisdom of his experience. It isn't just that I miss him, it's that sometimes even a grown man with a family, career, community, and plans, could use some advice or encouragement from his old man. On Fathers Day this Sunday, love your dad and thank him, but also love your kids and thank them for needing you to evolve. And never stop evolving.