A small child when holding a father’s hand will look up and see her strength. The person she knows will kiss her knees when she falls over, will carry her across the big puddles and read her bedtimes stories. As we grow though, our impression changes, we start to see their vulnerabilities, their weaknesses and we question our belief in them, in the power they had to make everything all right.
But the other day I was watching the West Wing, and The President of the United States is standing with his daughter waiting to walk her down the aisle. The supposedly the most powerful man in the world, in tears because he is about to give his daughter away.
And it was in that moment that I saw that fathers don’t become weaker as we get older, they in fact become stronger, because they allow us to see their vulnerable side, they show us their love in a more open way and bless us by allowing us more and more into their hearts. Something that takes the most amazing strength because they know it will show they are not our knights in shinning armour anymore and that they are not perfect.
But it shows us something else, how capable of love one person can be. For in the moment when a father gives a daughter away, or any moment when a tear rolls down a fathers cheek because he is so full of pride and love he cannot express it, he is showing us that his love is more powerful than anything we can imagine and that in allowing us to see his weaknesses, he is also revealing his strength.
I love you Dad, Happy (belated) Father’s Day.
