A few words of encouragement

I was playing golf last week with my friend, Jeff, and his father, Bob. I was standing over a ball, suddenly realizing that I might not have enough club to reach the green, and said as much. Bob was standing about ten feet away, heard me express my doubt, and said, “Sure you do, Matt. Just swing right through that ball. Strong and smooth. You can do it.” Then he patted me on the back and stepped to the side to watch.

It was the kind of thing that a father says to a son a million times in a lifetime, but not knowing my father for most of my childhood and being saddled with a stepfather who never attended to a single baseball game, basketball game or track meet, the words sounded both foreign and shockingly comforting as I addressed the ball to swing. I felt a mixture of burgeoning confidence and overwhelming sadness for all that I had missed out on as a boy, and a week later, those feelings still linger with me. Without a father to teach me, I had to learn to play sports on my own. I’m a lefthander who plays baseball right-handed because the only way for me to learn was to watch others. I had to latch onto other boys’ fathers when camping with the Boy Scouts, asking for rides to and from campsites and fending for myself more often than not. When I reflect back on my childhood, I haven’t minded the absence of a father, convinced that the strength, the tenacity and the independence that it fostered have been invaluable to me as an adult.

Though this is probably true, I think I might trade it all in for the opportunity to listen a father talk to me about how to hit a fastball, or cheer me on as I competed in the state championships in the pole vault, or just offer some simple encouragement, as Bob did on Sunday, as I approached a task with less confidence than is required. His words, an afterthought to any good father, meant so much to me. While they may have been commonplace in Jeff’s household when he was growing up, they would have been precious gems to me as a boy, as they were on the golf course last week.

My promise to you, little one, is that words of encouragement, demonstrations of support, and lessons on hitting a fastball or sinking a free throw will be so common and everyday in your life that you will take them for granted. You will think of them as just another ordinary and regular part of life, and find it impossible to imagine a childhood without this kind of love and attention.  For you, words and lessons like these will be as ordinary as granite. 

That’s the way they should be, little one. A thirty-eight year old man should not feel longing and sadness when a friend’s father speaks to him as he would to a son. It should be the kind of thing that he’s heard his entire life.

For you, it shall be.

And Bob was right. I swung my wedge strong and smooth and put the ball on the green.

Fathers are usually right, too, little one. Remember that.

Comments

[Miss Othmar]

I hadn't thought about that aspect of MY life in quite awhile...I often wondered what that would have been like. You put it very well Matty. You're a wonderful daddy!

[Tom]

Jeff's Dad is about the best around too I might add.