I love this song, and remember it each Father’s Day. Maybe because I was a teenager when I first
heard it, I still hear it from the son’s perspective. But the Father’s words also ring all too
clearly now in my heart, urging patience to one who feels only urgency, ‘… Take
your time, think a lot; think of everything you’ve got. For you will still be here tomorrow, but your
dreams may not.’
No matter how hard parents and children try to reach across
the generational divide, it does not disappear.
Our experiences intersect, but do not fully overlap; sometimes our love is
the only touchstone spanning a divide we are not allowed to cross.
To borrow from Kahlil Gibran, in his chapter On Children,
from The Prophet:
“…
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
…”
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
…”
Happy Father’s Day to all the amazing fathers I know!
