By Nancy Patrick

As a writer, I confess not only to fretting over word choice but sometimes to an entire essay. This particular essay is my fourth attempt to express my feelings about the complexities and implications of fatherhood, and I still question if I have accomplished my goal.

I begin with a poem by Robert Hayden I taught in my junior English classes. The title “Those Winter Sundays” reflects the thoughts of an adult child who failed to recognize or appreciate in childhood the qualities of his father.

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

The term “father” produces varied reactions among people whose relationships with their fathers differ greatly from one another. I have known many fathers during my lifetime—some good men and others terribly flawed men. I certainly realize that even good men have faults, but terribly flawed men can go beyond having flaws to entering the realm of depravity.

My own father formed the basis for my opinions about dads and men in general. Henry Loyce Smith imprinted his name on me as the firstborn child of Norma Jean Carr and Henry. I called him “Daddy,” never Father or Dad.

Uneducated, opinionated, and proud, Daddy left his familial home in Blevins, Arkansas, at the age of fourteen. He moved to a gasoline station in Hope, Arkansas, and pumped gas in exchange for a bed in the station’s back room until he enlisted in the U.S. Army to become one of the Greatest Generation that thought they fought the war to end all wars.

Daddy did not express affection, but somehow my sister and I knew he loved us—we had a home, food to eat, and clothes to wear. I would describe him as a father of his generation—afraid to show emotion, weighted down by the responsibility of providing for a family, and limited by opportunities.

Carl Carr, my maternal grandfather, died when I was two, so I do not remember him. My mother described him as a good man when he remained sober. Of course, I came to realize he suffered from alcoholism.

To add to that tragedy, he never had steady employment and spent any money he obtained on liquor and other women. My mother recounted beatings he gave her as she leaned on the edge of a bed where he whipped her with a razor strop.

Evidence of her fear of his anger manifested itself in her behavior after breaking an arm when she fell from a tree. She suffered in silence until her mother noticed her swollen and bruised arm. Her father died from bleeding ulcers in 1952 at the age of fifty-three, having sobered up after becoming a grandfather.   

My paternal grandfather, Ray Smith, a gruffy, uneducated man, worked as a carpenter to support his family of five children and a wife. Since my family had moved to Texas when I was five, I saw my grandparents only a couple of times during the year.

We all called Ray “Papaw.” He really doted on his grandchildren, but when I asked Daddy about his relationship with his own father, he simply said, “He was a bully.” That might explain why he began living on his own when he was fourteen. This grandfather died from heart disease at the age of sixty-three.

My husband, Mike Patrick, has been, in my opinion, a model for fatherhood. He and I planned carefully for the birth of our only child, Jason Neal Patrick. Mike differed from any other father I had known. He participated in every step of pregnancy and birth. 

His first full-time pastorate was Bethel Baptist Church in Princeton, Illinois. The pastor’s study was located in the parsonage. That meant Mike spent more time in our house than most dads get to do, and so he heard everything going on between Jason and me as I took care of him. He couldn’t resist coming out of his study when he heard laughing, crying, or playful behavior. I kept my camera handy so I could document all the special daddy-son moments. 

Jason Patrick with daughter Hannah when she was 14

I saved my last description to write about my son Jason who is also a father of an adult daughter. His wife and he were not ready for the responsibilities of marriage and parenthood, so they divorced when our granddaughter was only two-years-old.

As a result of his divorce, Jason’s life as a father mirrored the lives of many divorced men who did not have primary custody of their children. I knew many divorced men who simply dropped out of their children’s lives because they couldn’t deal with the difficulties they faced in regard to custody and child support. 

I watched Jason with apprehension as he faced these difficulties, but I soon realized that my son was a strong, committed father who faced all his challenges with determination and love. In spite of geographical distances, he stayed in his daughter’s life, traveling thousands of miles to attend events and never missing a child support payment. 

“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden illustrates the complexity of fatherhood. As children, we see our parents dimly through a clouded mirror. We see outward behavior but often are unable to see beyond the motivation and commitment behind that behavior. Working at menial jobs, enduring marital problems, obeying legal restrictions, or sacrificing personal goals may illustrate “love’s austere and lonely offices.”

Nancy Patrick is a retired teacher who lives in Abilene and enjoys writing