My Father

Te Ao Hou, June 1975, Page 26

My Father And so I meet my father and look at him across the years. I smile into his eyes, but he looks away, embarrassed. He is not used to having me close. Still, we act out convention. I introduce my children and he speaks to them as one unused to children does, —stiffly, formally, at arm's length. I feel bad. I want to say Dad,

there have been too many years between us … I want to reach out and brush the years away, I want to say I love you, Dad. But we are not alone, and somehow, I'm afraid to say it in a crowd. I don't really know if I'd have the courage to say it anyway, even if we were alone. So I say instead See kids, what love does to you? I say, note me, the object lesson for the day, —one overgrown fool, afraid, of a thing like love.