Norman Fried – June 16th, 2007

In the weeks and months after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center, many New York newspapers published intimate articles about men who lost their lives on that fateful day. In reading their obituaries, I was moved by a common theme that ran throughout: Many of the victims were fathers who left little children behind.

It is now five and one half years since the tragedy that changed the lives of all Americans. Many of the mourners have re-married; many of the children have inherited new father-figures. But their connection to the past, and to the men who dreamt of raising them and guiding them through life, remains altered still, and forevermore.

The approach of Father’s Day invokes a host of emotions for which many are unprepared. For some, it leaves us anxious, as we recall the man who couldn’t be there when we needed him, or the man who is not here now when we need him the most. For others, it stimulates feelings of gratitude as we honor the times we had with our father by our side. There are some among us who never knew our father; others who have not yet separated and, thus, never had to learn to say goodbye. Regardless of our own individual story, we are, all of us, reminded at this time every year just how important fatherhood is; how lives are shaped, and paths are forged, through the direction and guidance of a man older and wiser.

As children, we stand at the edge of life and curiously face what lies ahead. We follow in the footsteps of our fathers, our teachers, and our earliest heroes. As adolescents and young adults we struggle to find our own path, to reach a place that is wholly “ours,” new and untrammeled. And when we arrive as fully grown adults to this new place, we sometimes discover that we’ve been here before. We learn that projections from the past are often being replayed in the present, like tapes of our earlier, more primitive selves. And on these tapes, the voices of our fathers, our earliest teachers and guides, quietly resound, surreptitiously guiding us through the generations.

Fatherhood is a gift filled with paradox. It can teach us about the power of love while it surprises us with the pain of loss. It is a challenge that some of us accept through careful planning, a burden that others endure through time and trial. But when we allow ourselves to learn the lessons that this journey is trying to teach – about family, and friendship, and honor and fear; about sensuality and sorrow, and supplication and love – then, even in the pain of its absence in our lives, we can say thank you. For we have felt the love of another – someone wiser and stronger; or perhaps someone younger and more needful – and we can never be the same again.