Fatherly Advice

(Sorry for the late post, America. I've been sick with a terrible case of patriotism)

Sometimes I look at my wife, and I can't help but notice that slightly wistful frown she gives back to me. "What are you thinking about, honey?" I'll ask, but I already know the answer. "Oh, nothing."

Even the kids would ask sometimes why we never go anywhere as a family, and I just smiled at them sadly and said that Mommy and Daddy work on such tight schedules that it just never seems to work out. I always wanted things to be different, to be perfect. "They" say that you can't have violins the whole time, and, as the pain has cultivated itself I've learned over the years that "they" were right. We started on the wrong foot, sure, but I had no reason to think we'd stay there forever.

When the kids moved out, we lost most of our reasons to pretend. I confined myself to my side of the house. It had everything I need, the beer, the television and my hiking enthusiast magazines. I don't hike, but they help to remind me that there's more out there than just my enclosure. It's not like I planned things this way--when we were married, I knew I wanted to spend every minute of my life with this woman. It was true then, and it's true now, but it seems that such happiness is not meant to be mine.

When the call came, I was ecstatic to talk to my son. He had found The Girl, and he wanted to tell me everything about her. I listened with melancholy optimism as I heard so many of my own sentiments from years past find an incarnation in my son's young, naive "love" for this girl.

Perhaps I should have let the moment pass. Perhaps I should have just listened, silently hoping and praying that his luck would be better, but some protective spirit in me couldn't stand by and watch my son descend into that same quiet hell. I had come face to face with my old demon, the one that had ruined me, and it would not take my child.

"Son," I said with trepidation, trying to fight the quavering in my voice, "When you ask her to marry you, don't add the caveat `or I'll take a blowtorch to this bag of kittens.' Promise me."

"Uh, okay, Dad."

A single, bitter tear rolled down my wrinkled cheek as I hung up the phone.