“I was once like you are now, and I know that it’s not easy. To be calm when you’ve found something going on. But take your time, think a lot. Why, think of everything you’ve got for you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not. How can I try to explain, because when I do you turn away again. It’s always been the same, same old story, from the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen. Now there’s a way and I know that I have to go away. I know I have to go. It’s not time to make a change, just sit down, take it slowly. You’re still young, that’s your fault. There’s so much you have to go through. Find someone, settle down, if you want you can marry. Look at me, I am old, but I’m happy. All the times that I cried, keeping all the things I knew inside. It’s hard, but it’s harder to ignore it. If they were right, I’d agree. But it’s them they know, not me. Now there’s a way and I know that I have to go away. I know I have to go.” So after more than two months of not blogging why now? And why take a Cat Stevens classic about a father and son, and turn it into my own personal story about a father and his two daughters? Well, other than it’s my own personal blog and I can of course, but also because I just want the world to know how I truly feel for and love my daughters…both of them, and equally. And the fact that they deserved a father that is much better fitted for this world than I am, and how unbelievably they were still able to grow into what they eventually became in adulthood despite my shortcomings and faults, it truly is against all odds. And as selfish as I may have been in my own youth (and let’s face it, in my later years as well), I can honestly say if I took my last breath tonight, as long as all their dreams and goals became a reality either tomorrow or twenty years from now, then it would have all been worth it. Because the older one gets, and the shorter their life becomes, if a father truly understands what love is really about, then it is about their children (and grandchildren too), their hopes, their dreams, and their goals in life. I just hope they forgive me for every time that I’ve failed them (which is many), and fell short in what a father should be for them. I know I was never a great mentor for them, someone that they could look up to as the ideal father figure, someone they could actually be proud of. And for that, I do know that I could perhaps be judged as a failure in life by some?
And as an aging man now officially in his sixties, and looking back at it all, I see it. Unable to turn back time, I must reluctantly accept those shortcomings and failures as well. And hope they can forgive me for them? And wish the both of them success in their lives, and raising their own children in the ways where I may have fell short in their own childhoods. And to remember, that I was once like they are now, and I know that it’s not easy. So just take your time, and think a lot. Why, think of everything you’ve got for you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not. And that it may not always be the time to make a change, so just sit down and take it slowly. You’re still young, and there’s so much you have to go through. Find someone, settle down, if you want you can marry. And one day (sooner than you realize), you’ll be old like me, but truly happy. And you won’t have to look back on your own lives with some of that regret and remorse over the same mistakes that I may have made. But also with so much pride in what you both have become. And always know that you were truly loved and adored by your father.
