Sometimes things happen that simply don’t make quite enough sense.

There was no need for anyone to talk to me as I stood in the queue, hoping to change my first class ticket from London to Brussels for an earlier train.  As I explained to the woman at the desk, I was more than happy to sit in second class, if that meant I could get home forty minutes earlier than planned.

If you can measure the quality of time in hugs, smiles and conversation about things that matter, then this weekend had been a good one.  But now it was over.  I was tired and keen to return home, having spent all my love and energy in the company of my ‘London kids’. 

A man stood in line behind me.  I am not sure when he had joined the queue or quite how the conversation got started, but as I waited for the woman to return with my new ticket we began to talk. 

To be honest, I was only half listening, so did not quite catch the name of the Caribbean island from which he was returning or the exact nature of the project in which he was involved over there.  Neither did I ask him to repeat this information, as I simply assumed that this forty-something, well dressed man with a strong Dutch accent was just being polite -  passing the time of day before it was his turn to be at the front of the queue.

The woman at the desk called me over and handed me my new ticket.  But as I turned to leave, the man in line approached me again.  He clearly wanted to keep the conversation going.

‘I believe we have met for a reason,’ he started to say.  ‘I have a very strong feeling about who you are and believe that we have an opportunity together to make a difference.  You are a good man, with a good heart.  You are a good dad, trying to do your best for your children.  I see that in you.  I feel that very strongly about you.’

Taller than me, I looked up at this stranger who, for whatever reason, had chosen to speak with unusual candor and intent.

If only you knew, I thought to myself.  If only you knew how complicated it feels to be anything close to ‘good’ when it comes to being a dad these days.  If only you knew how many times I have stood in this very station, at this very platform, caught in the middle distance between children in two countries. 

Despite the awkwardness, there was a warmth in his voice that I found hard to explain.  Why me?  Why now?  What did any of this mean?  My mind was full of questions.

Thanking him for his kindness, I explained that I needed to call my younger son back to resolve a technical difficulty that he was having with the new iPod he had just purchased.  

As we shook hands, he told me his name. 

John. 

Looking back as I passed through the security barrier, I noticed that the stranger on the platform was gone.  Perhaps I’ll never know what he wanted and, to be honest, I don’t really care.

It was just another fragment – a moment in time worth remembering.  All part of life’s unfolding and wonderfully enriching story.

When is a dad not a dad? 

This question has bugged me for years now, but I guess that perhaps that’s normal – particularly as someone who lives in the shadow of divorce and the endless ritual of weekend ‘appointments’ with my children. 

Once upon a time, I never would have given it a second thought.  I had always ‘been there’ and simply assumed that I would always be captain of the ship that steered these young lives towards adulthood.

I never once thought, back in the day, that we would end up shipwrecked.  I never imagined, washed up on the shores of a strange land, how everything I had taken for granted would be challenged.

So what makes a dad?

Do we lay claim to this honorable role by virtue of our biological connection to these young lives?  Do we command their love as a by-product of what we do – day after day, year after year?  Are we, in other words, as uniquely important to our children as we like to imagine?  Or can anyone with the right level of commitment and dedication lay claim to the paternal wheel?

Philosophers have argued this point – albeit at a higher level – for centuries.  It’s called the old doing versus being chestnut.

In 1995, a better man than me, Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of French Elle and the father of two young children, found himself completely paralysed, speechless and only able to move one eyelid.  With his eyelid he ‘dictated’ a remarkable book that reflects deeply on the question on what it means to be human – and what it means to be a dad.

Describing himself as ‘something of a zombie father’, Bauby gives us a deeply moving account of his Father’s Day meeting with his children, Théophile and Céleste.

“As he walks, Théophile dabs a Kleenex at the thread of saliva escaping my closed lips.  His movements are tentative, at once tender and fearful, as if he were dealing with an unpredictable animal.  As soon as we slow down, Céleste cradles my head in her bare arms, covers my forehead with noisy kisses and says over and over, ‘You’re my dad, you’re my dad,’ as if in incantation.

… Until my stroke we had felt no need to fit this made-up holiday into our emotional calendar.  But this time we spend the whole of our symbolic day together, affirming that even a rough sketch, a shadow, a tiny fragment of a dad is still a dad.” (The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly, 1997)

It is hard to imagine the depth of feeling and haunting sense of loss that lies between the lines.  And tragically, there were no more Father’s Days for this family to celebrate as, two days after the publication of his memoir, Bauby passed away.

So what does make a dad?

The more I think about it, the more I realize that there are no easy answers – no one-fits-all recipe for this ‘parenting game’.  But one thing I can say for sure is that Bauby got it right - a tiny fragment of a dad is still a dad.

Even if all we can do is tell our children how much we love them with the blink of one eye.