This is random. This morning she was seated next to me. I was reading and she was playing with her food. I turned around and saw that image. I felt I needed to save it. So I snapped it. It’s largely instinctive, unthinking.
Giving it a rustic feel, it came out the way it did. Admittedly, it was an amateurish attempt to eternalise that which captured my heart, and paused my world for that window of a second.
Anyway, that’s my girl joy. She’s only nine. She was in a pyjamas her grandma gave to her. She is preparing for school.
That image was a moment captured by a father in his daughter’s lifetime. I believe there will be many moments like that, countless even. Moments where your child is seated beside you. Or she is nearby. And you are doing your thing and she hers. Moments you don’t even know existed, but can be felt somehow.
These moments come and go. We don’t pay attention to them often enough because we too are caught up in moments of our own. Moments that keep us busy, not without a purpose of course.
Anyway, this is not so much a musing about whether we fathers spend enough time with our child. It is not about us, not an self-inquisitorial probe. There will be time for that in my other posts.
It is however about them, about her, about our child. More relevantly, it is about such moments, moments that come and go.
I captured it because I do not want to forget it. Moments like this are innumerable, and everyone of them chronicles a life growing, learning, playing, enjoying, and even struggling.
These are moments that connect. They fill a space in my heart. They create a warmth glow that lingers. They join together pieces of life’s puzzle that forms a picture of meaning in my soul.
They are moments I believe I will take with me when I heave my last breath. For the feelings they evoke are instantly timeless.
As a father, I try not to miss them. I try not to leave a wide chronological gap between them. In other words, I try to capture them with intentional parenting, hoping to weave an image of continuity, largely seamless.
Continuity would mean that the images of the moments I capture show how she or he has grown from birth onwards. Each moment links to the next like a story unfolding.
I don’t desire a disjointed narrative, that is, from birth and then jumped to graduation, and her first job. But I desire a narrative of one from birth, to her first step, to her first word, to her infectious giggles, to her tears and disappointments, and to her smile after her tears and disappointments.
These moments are magical and beautifully intangible because they not only measure their growth, they measure mine too.
I often forget that when I look into her eyes, I see my image in them. I see me. I see how myself has grown as a father, a husband and a human being. It is a reflection of mutual maturity. An image of interdependent growth.
So, to complete the story for this morning, I lingered for a while to see her playing with her food in her pyjamas. She then turned to me and smiled. I smiled back. Our forehead touched, and I left a kiss on her cheek.
These are the moments that words struggle to capture; even a picture doesn’t paint enough. But it speaks volume to a father’s heart, and it also reminds me that my life has a glowing purpose. It is one about nurturing another life, and this is not done with possessions acquired, but by a life dedicated.
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