She slipped her small, smooth eight-year-old hand into mine. Her face
was lit up with joy. And as my daughter took my hand and moved closer
to me, I lost control of my emotions.
Tears of joy ran down my face, right in the middle of the church where
my daughter was having her first communion. Right in the middle of many
of our family members, who had come to support her.
As she sat there in her white dress and veil, she seemed an angel to
me. And when I saw the joy in her eyes, I was no match for it. The
tears just came.
There's no manual that comes for us in moments like this. They simply
grab you and take you where they want. I sat there, wrestling with a
number of conflicting thoughts and emotions. Would my daughter or other
family members be embarrassed? After all, I'm a man! We're supposed to
control our emotions, right? Part of me wanted to have the freedom to
cry freely without judgment. But mostly, the feeling that overcame me
was one of pure joy and gratitude.
Here I was with a loving, supportive family, seeing my daughter go
through an important rite of passage, and seeing her immense excitement
and joy. Sharing that moment with her made everything in my life feel
worthwhile. It made all the hardships of raising children seem
insignificant. I felt as fortunate as anyone on earth. Why was I chosen
to receive all these blessings? It was the kind of moment that we don't
have enough of, and the kind of moment that fathers don't always
embrace as strongly as they could.
This kind of moment is what most of us live for, whether we know it or
not. The moment in which our heart takes over. The moment that brings
us the closest to pure love, when we see our child as an amazing gift
from God.
On this day, the vision of my daughter snuggled next to me was etched in my mind forever.
Later, after the celebration was over, we arrived at home to begin
business-as-usual. I thought about the many projects that I'd neglected
to start. The garden, the lawn, and the inside of the house all
screamed my name. I felt that familiar sense of having too many things
to do, and too little time.
And then I remembered the moment with my daughter again, knowing that
it could never be taken away from us. I knew then that the decision
about which project to start wasn't really important. In fact, it
didn't matter that much if I started any of them at all.
What was really important was keeping my heart open, for the next "moment."
Mark Brandenburg MA, CPCC, is the author of "25
Secrets of Emotionally Intelligent Fathers". Mark is a father too and lives in Shoreview, Minnesota with his wife and two
children.
For more great tips and action steps for fathers, sign up for his FREE
bi-weekly newsletter, "Dads, Don't Fix Your Kids," at Link:
http://www.markbrandenburg.com
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