By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
Fifteen years ago, I was not writing Western romance but teaching sixth-grade Ancient-World History and Language Arts in a central California farming community.
I was also writing a slice-of-life column for a daily newspaper in a larger, nearby city. This Father’s Day, I want to share one of those columns with you – one that speaks of a priceless moment from those rich years of seeing life through the eyes of a child.
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“If Only”
One of the great things about kids is their surprise factor. You never know what they’re going to say next, like “What about Mrs. Potamia?”
Mrs. Potamia was that woman in Iraq who lived between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. She was one of the ancient aunt-sisters, according to some of my sixth-grade history students, a distant relative of the famous Egyptian lady, Rosetta Stone.
Maybe it was a language barrier that sent students into rhetorical contortions, or maybe it was just a delightful little bonus for us grownups who needed a splash of humor in our lives.
Or maybe, as a teacher, I needed to be reminded that I didn’t have all the answers to all the questions.
“If people didn’t exist, where would chickens live?”
I didn’t see that one coming, but the look on the boy’s face said he wasn’t kidding.
Many of the students who passed through my classroom moved out of my life completely as their families followed the ebb and flow of a harvest tide. Parents found jobs elsewhere. Texas and Mexico really weren’t that far away, so babies were bundled and furniture stored and friendships torn apart. It happens.
And it happened one hot June morning at the end of the school year.
“Mrs. Spencer – we’re moving.”
The boy’s dark eyes met mine, void of his usual excitement and anticipation. They merely confirmed an unavoidable fact. And in their old-too-soon gaze I read, “I don’t want to go.”
“Did your father get a new job?” I asked, ignorantly assuming the reason behind the departure of one of my brightest students.
“No.” He glanced away, quickly noting other students nearby. “I’ll tell you later.”
Again I jumped at a possible motive. Perhaps it was an immigration issue.
But later, as promised, he shared the reason. Through the painfully pure sentence structure of one too young to cloak his feelings, I learned the truth.
“My dad left me.”
Not many statements had caught me by greater surprise. In four simple words, this twelve-year-old revealed all the pain of a broken home, the self-imposed guilt of the guiltless, the bottom-line loss of one left behind.
I will never know if he confused his pronouns and really meant to say, “My dad left us,” but somehow I doubt it. I think his heart spoke the words before his mind could interfere.
Teaching is often like parenting and grand-parenting: you want to protect those who suffer from that which causes them pain.
If only you could.
If only I could have captured the joy of innocent discovery and saved it for later. If only I could have answered unanswerable questions or dried the eyes that watched a hometown slide past the backseat windows of his mother’s car.
If only I could have assured those boys and girls that in spite of the surprises and the questions and the pain, they would make it. Their journey would be worth it, and I was blessed to have had them in my life.
Even if only for a moment.
And he shall turn the heart
of the fathers to the children,
and the heart of the children
to their fathers …
Malachi 4:6
Author’s note:
Today, if you’re a dad, don’t wait for your children to give you a card, send you a text, or fix your favorite meal. Take the first step and tell them you love them. Tell them you’re sorry for the mistakes you’ve made, (you’re human) and tell them how much they mean to you.
And if you’re a child of an absentee father, remember that you don‘t know the whole story. If your father was a brute rather than a dad, find forgiveness. And if there was no father at all, learn about your Father in heaven who loves you more than humanly possible.
His heart spoke the words before his mind could interfere. Share on XInspirational Western Romance – where the hero is heroic.
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(c) 2024 Davalynn Spencer, all rights reserved.
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So very sad and there is far too much of just that going on. Yet, I often question how much better life might have been if only my father walked away. He had a terrible cursing, yelling temper, constantly reminding us of how stupid we were, totally dumb, would amount to nothing, etc. and it was no secret he sought outside companionship. Would life be better without him? Certainly much more peaceful and stable. Would my mom be capable of making it on her own…his anger never was aimed at her, for some strange reason, but did she feel secure , safe, loved? Can only wonder…in many ways I was blest to overcome what he spewed at us, but my sister took in and totally digested his words and found everything just too hard and went literally nowhere in life..go-nowhere jobs and in her 4th marriage…so horribly sad! So…would his absence have made a difference? Can only speculate. Life!
Anon – a weighty question, indeed. And one asked by many. Abuse of the defenseless is all too common in this sin-bent world. Thank God you made it out of the barrage of lies and on to life.