These three words

How are you going to be remembered as a parent?

Let’s be honest.  The legacy of love that we are all trying to lay down for our children is sometimes obscured by the day-to-day routines of modern family life.  That said, every now and again, most of us have taken a step back and wondered about the stories our children will one day tell about us.

And very occasionally, they give us clues.

Yesterday was Father’s Day in this corner of the world and, as is the annual custom chez nous, I was woken by the sound of the kids busily cooking a Full English Breakfast and laying the table in my honour. 

As I took my place in the ‘Chair of Cheer’, with the smell of fried eggs now making me hungry, a pile of home-made card and gifts were thrust into my chest.

 I wonder who first had the idea of creating a card for fathers everywhere in the shape of a shirt and tie?  Has this become a universal symbol of paternal parenting, or do children on the other side of the planet use scissors to create a different kind of image?

One of my shirt-shaped greetings had a list of words on the back, presumably where the teacher had asked my daughter to describe her father.

For a split second, I was worried.  What if we had argued that day on the way to school and the first words that had come into her mind were ‘unfair’, ‘miserable’, or ‘angry’?  Would the teacher have given her a second chance or simply encouraged her to write down her first, instinctive response?

Thankfully, we must have got to school that day without a fuss, because all of the words were clearly designed to make me feel good.

Three words stood out at the end of the list:

“Playful, Loving…  Skyping.”

At first, I thought that ‘Skyping’ referred to my recent, rather embarrassing, efforts to coordinate my entire body to jump over a rope.  But no!  Apparently it really was the attempt of a six-year old to label me as the Dad that skypes.

Of all the pieces of my story for her to capture in this simple list, I found it remarkable that she had decided to focus on this aspect of who I was trying to be as a father.

Looking back, I suppose that I had always been something of an early adopter.  As soon as Apple’s iChat was first released, I saw an opportunity to unite our family and lessen the distance between us all.  In the early days, when the children were all still young, we’d often eat with the laptop nearby – somehow convincing everyone that we were all,literally, around the table.  And then, with the advent of Skype, we found a reliable way of endlessly talking face-to-face about the funny things, the sad things, and everything in-between that filled our days.  When things went wrong, we even learned to have those more difficult conversations by arranging to meet in this virtual world.

Of course, it didn’t fill the gap completely.  However good it may have seemed at the time, we always felt the space where countless hugs should have been.  And no amount of technology will ever bring those back.  As a father, there will always be a sense of loss; but, my goodness, it could have been a whole lot worse.

Tucking into another rasher of bacon, surrounded by each of my young chefs, I smile to myself.  I guess I’ll never know for sure the stories that they will tell about me when they’re all grown up and out of sight.  If it’s anything to do with ‘Playful, Loving and Skyping’, though, I’ll be happy.

These three words pretty much sum up everything that ought to be said.