Father Forgets

A very sensible story about a father
forgetting his son is just a little boy.
Let us give our love fully and
our attention undivided,
after all, they are our children.
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FATHER FORGETS
W. Livingston Larned
condensed as in "Readers Digest"

Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep,
one little paw crumpled under your cheek
and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead.
I have stolen into your room alone.
Just a few minutes ago,
as I sat reading my paper
in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me.
Guiltily I came to your bedside.

There are the things I was thinking, son:
I had been cross to you.
I scolded you as you were dressing
for school because you gave
your face merely a dab with a towel.
I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes.
I called out angrily when you threw
some of your things on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too.
You spilled things.
You gulped down your food.
You put your elbows on the table.
You spread butter too thick on your bread.
And as you started off to play
and I made for my train,
you turned and waved a hand
and called, "Goodbye, Daddy!"
and I frowned, and said in reply,
"Hold your shoulders back!"

Then it began all over again
in the late afternoon.
As I came up the road I spied you,
down on your knees, playing marbles.
There were holes in your stockings.
I humiliated you before
your friends by marching you
ahead of me to the house.
Stockings were expensive-
and if you had to buy them you would
be more careful! Imagine that,
son, from a father!

Do you remember, later,
when I was reading in the library, how
you came in timidly, with a sort
of hurt look in your eyes?
When I glanced up over my paper,
impatient at the interruption,
you hesitated at the door.
"What is it you want?" I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across
in one tempestuous plunge,
and threw your arms around
my neck and kissed me,
and your small arms tightended
with an affection that God had set
blooming in your heart
and which even neglect could not wither.
And then you were gone,
pattering up the stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards
that my paper slipped from my hands
and a terrible sickening fear came over me.
What has habit been doing to me?
The habit of finding fault,
of reprimanding-this was my reward
to you for being a boy.
It was not that I did not love you;
it was that I expected too much of youth.
I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.

And there was so much that was good and fine and true
in your character. The little heart of you
was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills.
This was shown by your spontaneous
impulse to rush in and kiss me good night.
Nothing else matters tonight, son.
I have come to your bedside in the darkness,
and I have knelt there, ashamed!

It is feeble atonement;
I know you would not understand
these things if I told them to you
during your waking hours.
But tomorrow I will be a real daddy!
I will chum with you,
and suffer when you suffer,
and laugh when you laugh.
I will bite my tongue
when impatient words come.
I will keep saying as if it were a ritual:
"He is nothing but a boy-a little boy!"

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man.
Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled
and weary in your cot, I see that you
are still a baby. Yesterday you were
in your mother's arms,
your head on her shoulder.
I have asked too much, too much.