That's men for you: Padraig O'Morain'sguide to men's health.
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his . . .
The words are those of King Claudius as he attempts to deflect Hamlet's grief and rage at the death of his father whom Claudius has murdered. They are not, I suppose, dissimilar to words that are spoken in real life as people try to console those who are grieving.
But the death of a father cannot be dismissed with words like that. A father is a larger than life figure to his children, even to his adult children. His death is an emotional shock which, in most cases, becomes one of the unforgettable markers along the road of their lives.
Indeed, judging by the death of my own father more than 20 years ago, and from conversations I have had with people in similar situations, the death comes as a shock even if it is long expected and even if it is a relief to the person who has died. It is as though an earthquake has occurred in one's emotional life. There can be a sense that this event has been so profound that you cannot drift along in the old way but must do something of significance with your own life. That sentiment can put the bereaved adult child on the road to profound change before it fades away.
The father is an ordinary man. He has the strengths and weaknesses of ordinary men. But unless you have been desperately unlucky, your father's strengths will seem quite extraordinary and his weaknesses relatively insignificant or, if not insignificant, forgivable.
In a sense, we never stop looking at our fathers through the eyes of the child to whom he is an almost magical figure of great power. I suppose that's something that we fathers have going for us. We may feel dissatisfied with ourselves or only too aware of our shortcomings but our children, generally, know nothing of this.
Somebody once said that if you want to lead a good life you should try to be the person your dog thinks you are. Well, that would certainly be more achievable than being the person your children think you are. (I have to confess, though, that even being the person my dog thinks I am would be a tall order for myself.)
These thoughts were spurred by an entry in Newton's Laws, an Irish blog by Paul Newton, in which he wrote movingly about the death of his father: "Everyone leaves a legacy. Some people leave millions of pounds, some leave heartache and sorrow. My father left neither of those, he left something far more valuable. He left me the things he valued greatly, the virtue of strength, the importance of gentleness, the necessity for dignity, the power of passion. He was my port of last resort and he would bail me out. We got through those times and grew closer because of them, and when he died I knew I owed him nothing except to keep his values intact, to live a life that gave of my best, that left it out there on the field, a life that would allow me to live at peace with myself."
Are sentiments like these felt to the same extent, I wonder, by those whose father has never lived in the family home as by children of conventional families? I think the answer is yes, if the father is interested and involved. Revering our parents, even when we give them trouble, seems to be an inherent part of us.
And what gift can we fathers give to our children? I suppose we could at least make the attempt to be the person they think we are, even though we know we will fall short. Perhaps we might also bear in mind that there is somebody whom the children want to impress and that's us. Maybe we should take care, now and then, to give them back some of the admiration which we get from them almost by default.
- Padraig O'Morain's blog on men's issues,Just Like A Man , is at www.justlikeaman.blogspot.com