Fathers be good to your daughters

I'm stealing a line from John Mayer. This happens to be one of my all time favorite songs, ever. I'm amazed every time I hear it at the wisdom it conveys.

I think about my father a lot. He died almost 4 years ago, when my own daughter was nearly three years old. I really loved my father. But the last 9 years of his life were painful for both of us. It wasn't the cancer that killed him that caused us the most pain, either. It's that, I believe, he forgot he still needed to be my father, and I forgot I still needed to honor him as such.

I always knew my father loved me. I really never questioned that he was proud of me. But something changed when he remarried. His wife didn't share the same history that we did. She didn't appreciate the bond, in fact sometimes I wonder if she was jealous, threatened by it. I wonder if I was too much of a reminder that yes, he had been married before, and yes, there was a time in his life that he didn't know her, and yes, I mattered. My brother mattered. Even my mother, his ex-wife, mattered.

In a sense, my father abandoned me in favor of this new life with this new family. He left his post as my defender. He left his post as my biggest cheerleader. And although he had a hard time ever revealing his innermost thoughts to anyone, the times that he would share, well, those came to an end to.

Fathers be good to your daughters.
Daughters will love like you do

It's true, John. You're right. As odd as it seems, I struggle not to draw away from my children in favor of what I want, when I want it. I'm selfish at heart, just like my father was when he chose another life and another family over ours. I struggle not to let gadgets, entertainment, "enrichment", etc become a mother to my children. They need to know me, they need to understand my disappointments with myself, my shortcomings, my triumphs. But more than that, they need me. Real, involved, entertwined with their lives in a way my father never was involved and entertwined with mine. Maybe that's why it was possible for him to leave. The investment in us just wasn't enough to hold him home.

I've forgiven my father for his shortcomings. He really did love me. It's just at times, he loved himself more.

So, my prayer is that I will learn to love like my Father, the One who imagined me in the first place. Sacrificial, transparent, yearning, devoted, compassionate love that knows no boundaries.

Fathers, be good to your daughters.
Daugters will love like you do.
Girls become lovers, who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters, too.
-John Mayer, Daughters