A long walk!

 

What delayed me for work yesterday was this sight of a father and son( I hope I am correct) on  a walk in a quiet road !

Three things happened during the fifteen minutes. They walked up and down three times perhaps about fifty meters in one direction.  

Then father carried his son and showed him sights. The captivating sights was the water birds below.

By then the child was asleep on his father's shoulder and they were on their way back home !

I shall treasure this sight for a while as there were some special features in this walk.

Both were bare footed. They were in conversation with each other. Father carried the child when he felt the tiredness of the child. He turned that to show his son some sights. He allowed his son to sleep on his shoulder. 

A moving sight of how both were feeling bonded towards each other. The delight of the father to accompany his son walk and carry him when he no longer could walk and let him sleep on his shoulder are some symbolic features in the father's attitude towards his on. The father tuned himself fully to the thoughts and feelings of his son. 

The son in turn walked beside his father at a pace he decided for the father. The child knew how to make his father to keep pace with him. The control of the pace of walk was in the hands of the son. The son chose to be carried and fall asleep on his father's shoulder. 

I wish this message is what will guide father-child relationship! Sometimes I wonder whether father's can adjust to the pace of their children! Don't fathers drag children to keep up with their pace! 

To be available as and when a child needs a father would mean, that a father stays tuned himself to the felt and unspoken needs of a child!

That is why walking with our children is a long walk! There is so much as parents we are to learn almost daily if we have to accompany our children intimately in their formative years. 

As I look back, I have some regrets but several reasons to be grateful for the communicative freedom Anna and I discovered with our children in their earlier years. They were present to us as those who controlled our pace to some extent. They forgave us for those occasions when we  hastened their pace. 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)