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My Father, My Teacher 6/16/2013 10:24:42 AM
A short, and heartfelt discourse on a father-daughter relationship My Father, My Teacher
I remember getting up from my perch on the old marble steps of the apartment we lived in, and excitedly running to meet you as you arrived home after a long day of work in the sweat shops of Philadelphia. We were glad to see each other, and I always wanted you to have a special greeting. Children know when their father’s worked harder then they ever wanted to let on to. It wasn't unusual for you to disappear afterwards for several hours and sleep - such was the evidence of your long, laboring days.
I learned so much from you during those early years of my youth. I learned that fathers sometimes have to do what they don't really want to do in order keep their family in a decent condition. I learned that you would much rather have been sitting at the table in the kitchen drinking your coffee and reading one of your books on philosophy or literature, which effectively removed yourself from the realities of your existence. I also learned that in your moments of sparkling brilliance, you gave me a world of ideas, poetry, literature, and science that few young girls my age ever could have imagined. I knew at some level within my child's heart that you were not living the life that you could have been living had circumstances been different, and a feeling of helplessness sometimes overcame me. I spoke to myself in the softest of whispers, "I don't want to live a life where I must forsake who I might be.” “I don't want to suffer like my father."
As time would tell, it was your perceived suffering that became the strongest teacher I have ever known. There were times when you would tell me, "You don't want to be like me," which only testified to the fact that my observations were correct.
Dad, you may never have known how very much I admired and loved you, my father, my teacher, my mentor. I often self-queried, “Were you there to set me on a path so that I could go in the direction of my dreams?” “Did you model for me what not to do?” “Did you free and unknowingly empower me with the courage to find my own way?” If so, I owe you the greatest gratitude that any daughter could ever owe their father...you set me free to be myself, and you will always have my eternal love because of it! I know that we will meet again one day as two souls in two different forms – yet, we shall remain, the archetypes of the teacher and the student. Who knows which role we might be in the next time around?
