- Feb 19, 2000
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A few people have asked me if I would write a Father's Day poem, and I have done so. The result may not please everyone. It isn't the sort of thing that comes from Hallmark; it is the sort of thing that comes from me, and that's all I can give right now.
This was not easy; my father died nearly eleven years ago, and my relationship with him was stormy, at best. I hope he knew a few things that I wasn't able to tell him. And if he did not know those things then, may God allow him to know them now.
This is for you, Arch Robert MacKay...
...and for other fathers whose love may be hard to earn, yet impossible to forget.
SOME FATHERS
Some fathers have a roughness,
Their faces hewn from boulders,
Some cultivate a gruffness
And a daunting shrug of shoulders.
Some fathers frown like thunder
Though their souls are soft as rain,
They wear their hearts tucked under
A protective sheet of pain.
Some fathers never speak of love
And yet love still leaks through;
The kindnesses not spoken of
Are just as real and true.
You speak with every lawn you mow
And every time that you say "no."
However much you wish to hide,
I'll always hear the love inside.
Some fathers never say that much,
But some love speaks through toil;
Sometimes the hand you want to touch
Is begrimed with motor oil.
~Jean MacKay Jackson
This was not easy; my father died nearly eleven years ago, and my relationship with him was stormy, at best. I hope he knew a few things that I wasn't able to tell him. And if he did not know those things then, may God allow him to know them now.
This is for you, Arch Robert MacKay...
...and for other fathers whose love may be hard to earn, yet impossible to forget.
SOME FATHERS
Some fathers have a roughness,
Their faces hewn from boulders,
Some cultivate a gruffness
And a daunting shrug of shoulders.
Some fathers frown like thunder
Though their souls are soft as rain,
They wear their hearts tucked under
A protective sheet of pain.
Some fathers never speak of love
And yet love still leaks through;
The kindnesses not spoken of
Are just as real and true.
You speak with every lawn you mow
And every time that you say "no."
However much you wish to hide,
I'll always hear the love inside.
Some fathers never say that much,
But some love speaks through toil;
Sometimes the hand you want to touch
Is begrimed with motor oil.
~Jean MacKay Jackson