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.

I don’t know when it happened, far less why, but shopping with my teenage son has become something of a personal challenge for me.

Not so very long ago, I could do no wrong in the eyes of my children – at least when it came to being ‘cool’ and picking out the latest fashion.  Even my taste in music was treated with a degree of respect, despite being given a run for its money by Crazy Frog and Alvin and the Chipmunks.

The point is, I was the one setting the standard, making the rules and defining what was ‘good’. 

In an instant, though, something happened and I found myself wondering whether it was I who had changed or the young man who now sat opposite me.

One simple sentence.  But it was enough to knock me off my guard and lose my bearings for a moment:

‘Come on, Dad!  You are far too old for a pair of Converse!’

Standing in the middle of a shoe shop, somewhere in London’s Soho district, it was only a minor crisis of confidence, but the words rang out so loud and clear that I felt that somehow everyone was looking at me and quietly walked back into the busy street empty handed.

When did I start being ‘old’ in his eyes?  Did it happen overnight or was it something that occurred gradually?

And all this got me wondering about other parental milestones that seem to have come and gone, almost unnoticed or left unspoken.

When, for example, did I stop holding the tiny hands of my children when out shopping or when trying to cross a busy road? When did I become too old to help them brush their teeth or stop deciding what they should wear each morning?  When did I stop giving kisses before bedtime?  When did I start feeling self-conscious about giving them a hug or telling them that they are so wonderfully and uniquely loved?  When, precisely, did they stop running into my arms after a day at school?

A series of milestones – a never-ending series of losses; all part of what it means, as a parent, to ‘let go’ of our children in order that they might travel life’s journey for themselves.

And what I am thinking is that it’s all too easy to let this stuff slip by.  The rituals of childcare are so routine – so demanding – that we can forget to notice how important, how precious, they are. 

Until they are gone.

These glorious, if fleeting, moments in our lives, so filled with significance and meaning, relegated to the pages of dusty photo albums; until one day we look back and see how far we have come and how much the landscape has changed since those early days of sleepless nights, cutting teeth and much celebrated first steps.

Back in the shoe shop, somewhere in Central London, I look at my son and see a young adult starring back at me – a soon-to-be man enjoying the opportunity to flex his muscles and challenge his ‘old’ Dad. 

‘I remember precisely the moment when you took your first steps,’ I think to myself.  ‘I remember the look of joy on your face when you received your first football shirt and the look of fear on your face on your first day at school.  I recall the stories that made you laugh at bedtime and the nights we sat on the sofa together because you could not sleep.  So how did we get to this?’

Leaving the shop, there is a spring in my son’s step that is distinctly lacking in my ‘old’ shoes.

‘But that’s okay, ‘ I reasoned to myself.   ‘Just because of all those memories you have given me, I’ll let you keep your Converse.’

At least for this week.