Father's Day

Hi guys:

Today is Father's Day around here. A columnist, writing for The Globe and Mail, used the other day the same expression that one of you mentioned last Sunday: that Father's Day is a Hallmark Day. The same can be said of almost everything: Mother's Day, Earth Day, Christmas, etc.

Since Hallmark doesn't produce cards for dads to address his kids on Father's Day, and taking advantage that very few men do that (I wonder if any does it), I thought that I'd write to both of you on this day.

Let me follow the path of emotions in order to describe what does it mean to be a dad. As soon as I got the confirmation that you guys were on your way, my first emotion was fear. This is a very complex emotion, because it's one of the very few that is shaped by its object, by what provokes it. Fear to the unknown is different to the fear that stems from being threatened, and its' quite different from the fear that is stirred up by the ugly and horrible, or by what is different and new.

In hindsight I'd say that Dr. Ventolini's announcement confronted me with the challenges of being a man. Thus, I discovered that fear doesn't necessarily have to lead to paralysis. In my case, fear prompted me to act as a man, that is to embrace the joy of sharing life with what is at the end the fruits of love. It's a brave thing, this business of raising children. It's so brave that one is always left with a nagging feeling of inadequacy.

Now, 22 and 20 years later I want to say that I'm glad that I was invaded by fear when you guys were born. Years later, I read in a poem that we come to this world to face our own demons: "What I do is me: for that I came". Busying myself with becoming me took me through the dark valley of fear, and if there's any success for me to claim it's because of you. Bursting through life, you spurred me on to conquer my fears, at least the scariest of them all: that of becoming a man.

Fearful? Yes. Dithering? No. This is what I am: a man with his fears, yet unwilling to surrender it all to its cold cuffs. Fear was displaced by love, cheesy as it may sound. The old book says that wherever there's love there's no room for fear.

I congratulate myself on this day because of you guys. Each one of you, each on his own way, is figthing the good battle, that which will see you gaining solid ground for you to firmly stand on. Let the ensuing scars render you truthful and sensitive to the beauty of the human mistery.

I love you both; dearly.

Dad