Tennis kit
My father disappeared off into the blue yonder when I was only seven, so perhaps I am not the greatest expert on father’s.
I remember, for years, after he had knocked my mother unconscious before leaving, I used to check the road fund tax details on cars parked near to where I lived in the UK, as I returned home. The hope was that one of the cars parked at the side of road belonged to my father and he would be visiting. I was always disappointed.
Seven years later, my mother discovered where my father was living and took my brother and I to see them. One of the first things he said to us was that he didn’t believe in inheritance and was never going to leave as anything, even though he was fairly well-to-do.
Kids get by and I am sure that others have had a much harder life than we did. Mother elected not to take another partner so it was just the three of us until my brother and I were grown up. As things have turned out, we’ve both stayed with our wives throughout our children’s childhood. Perhaps the knowledge of what it was like to grow up without a father has kept us on the straight and narrow.
But it is not a one-way process. When my son was thirteen, he was really giving my wife a hard time. I have always been a fairly remote father but I realised that he needed me so I made a special effort to spend time with him. My passion was playing club level tennis and I soon found that he was keen to learn so I taught him how to play. We went through the basics, then onto the more advanced stuff and then on to the tournaments. He never made it into the top flight but that didn’t matter. He came out of the experience with a skill that he will enjoy for the rest of his life and memories of being with his father at a very special time in his development. He’s now a basketball fanatic but I feel sure that he will return to tennis one day.
I came out of the experience with many memories of sunny days spent with my son, cajoling him on and struggling with his moods as he rebelled against the difficulties of this or that stroke or technique. I’m sure we bonded in a way that males of the species do and that we will both never forget. Both of us benefited from the experience.
I have no religious faith. Even at difficult times when it would have been a consolation, I have been unable to believe. This is largely a matter of considered opinion. The universe is a very large place and the thought that some benign deity has constructed human beings in his own image seems to me very far-fetched. However I have often wondered whether my upbringing without a father made this point of view easier or more natural.
Perhaps as people grow up and they lose their natural fathers, the grieving process necessitates them to replace their natural father with a supernatural one.
In the UK, as in many other countries, we have a father’s day. My kids have even bought me cards to celebrate this event. However, I think it is a pity that such an important and strong natural relationship as fatherhood should be reduced in many cases to a mere commercial transaction.
Perhaps we need to spent some time thinking of some other way to celebrate fatherhood and the importance of our fathers to all of us.
Perhaps we don’t. Perhaps it is as easy as spending some time together.
Bye for now
Rob
