Being A Dad

Yesterday was Father's Day. The joy of my life is being a father. I know that sounds, perhaps, contrived or corny or maybe even unauthentic. But I promise I am not understating the gratitude I have to God for allowing me to experience fatherhood. I have been both a father and a step-father. My love for both my son, Alex, and my step-daughter, Brie, are immeasurable. Again, you may be questioning my authenticity with such a statement but you'll just have to take my word for it.

So, as I mentioned, yesterday was Father's Day. I reflected quite a bit on my own father and on my role as a father. I wrote a piece about my own father, recorded a narration of it, and set it to a slideshow style video that I then posted to Facebook.

In the afternoon, yesterday, Robin and I drove over to my son's house. He is married and has a beautiful wife and a 2 year old son. They are all part of my circle of love.

My son and his wife gave me a card from their son. He calls me Poppa (or Papa, if you prefer). The card had a handprint from my grandson. It is a beautiful thing. Truly a work of art in that it stirs an emotion. That's what art should do. That is how art should always be viewed: as something created by someone that stirs an emotion. I imagined how fun it must have been for them to work with their little son to press his palm into rich blue paint and the press his little hand onto the paper.

See? That is also the unique aspect of art. While standing at a painting or a sculpture in a museum, while watching dancers engage in precision choreography on a stage, while listening to a song crafted by a composer sitting with her instrument, or even while experiencing the savory flavors of a work of culinary art, we can all stop and ponder the work that went into it and the emotions that may have been flowing through the artist as each work was being created.

So, back to talking about fatherhood.

The image I am including with this post is a pastel painting I did of my son back in 2001. During the last week of 2000 we drove from Florida to North Carolina with the hopes to see snow (it would be the first time my son, Alex, who was 14 years old at the time, would see snow). It was a great trip and I'll share the details of that trip some other time. The important thing for this conversation is that I took photos on that trip. One of those photos was the reference photo for the artwork you see in this post. I romanticized or dramatized the image a bit with exaggerated sun beams and glistening reflections but, hey, that's what artists do. Right?

I have held onto that pastel painting all these years. Until yesterday. Yesterday, on Father's Day, I gave my son that pastel painting. As he unrolled it and realized what it was I saw the smile that I was hoping to see. Clearly he was flooded with memories. Good memories. Memories of traveling with his father (me) to see snow.

The artwork does something a snapshot might not be able to do. Not because of the image on the paper but because at some point in time, maybe even at MANY points in time, Alex will look at that painting and know that my hands crafted each tiny stroke of the pastel to create it. He will know that my love for him caused me to spend time at the drawing board so that I could, in my own way, savor that moment that was so special to us.

Time is fleeting. Very fleeting. The memories we all have of our time with our loved ones are often the only thing we have.

But don't be sad. It's easy to read those last few lines and feel sad. No, feel happy. Happy that those moments happened. Happy that those memories are shared. And, if you are lucky, happy that the moment lives on in a work of art.