When the Homily is about Immunology

My life is over

At some point...some damned point...I must realize this is true. Please excuse the language, but I am presently very passionate about how much I live as if 1) I will live forever and 2) that my life is really my own. A good realization I suppose (that I do live this way and shouldn't), but give it a moment and it will pass as it often does.

I too often treat my children as if they were articles of furniture in my house...as opposed to human beings who desperately need my love and guidance. Yes, yes, it is a common theme for me to lament here about my failures as a parent and I've no wish for this to be another episode doing just that. Rather, a public commitment (much like my last confession) to strive to be a better parent...to effectively stop living my life solely for myself and to truly realize that my life belongs first to God, second to my children, and then to my wife, and then to me.

Don't buy the crap popularly vomited out these days of sky rocketing divorce and child abandonment that claims you ought to live for yourself in order to live best for others...I just don't buy that - at least not for me. I am VERY VERY VERY VERY good at living for myself first and I would not worry about assuming my wife would say the same for herself. Hell who are we kidding, save for a few with certifiable pathologies we all have managed to learn to live for ourselves quite well. Our children, so delicate, so influential, so helpless in so many ways...they are the ones who require us the most.

Sigh...it is so hard sometimes as I find myself more and more worrying about my children's various "issues" and blaming myself and my failings for them. In many ways it is meet and right for me to blame myself, but what good is blaming myself if I do not get off my lazy hind end and DO SOMETHING! No one is getting younger...there is no time for another round of empty bedtime self-promises: "Tomorrow I will be a better Dad."

So warns - albeit in different words - an amazing book I am reading called "Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters", and already two chapters into it, I am finding myself challenged, chastened, over-whelmed by the responsibility and power I wield, and I am encouraged. In essence the book smashes the popular feces pouring out of pop-post-modern psycho insanity that claims that Dad's aren't needed. Fact is, all the stats and facts say decidedly the opposite and the importance of fathers is AMPLIFIED when applied to our daughters. Our absence (either physically or emotionally) is devastating to little girls....DEVASTATING.

The book also reminds me of the tremendous blessing I have in raising my daughters. Oft have I joked about being terrified of having daughters, but you know what? Dr. Meeker is reminding me of the beauty of that special bond between a woman and her daddy...it is both unique and precious. But the extent to which it is, is in my hands.

My life is over. So help me God.