Skip to main content

Papa, do you love me?

A very young grandfather was interrupted in his thoughts and his walk by his seven year old granddaughter's question.


"Papa, do you love me?"
"Of course. Why do you ask?"


She tugged at his finger. When they walked she held on to one of his fingers , wrapping her little hand tightly. Their walk stopped.


"Papa, do you love me?" This time much more emphatic and impatient. He knelt down to look at her, their eyes meeting. She never looked away. Eye on eye. She could see into his soul. Seemed like that since the delivery room. What a day that was! She repeated, "Do you love me?"


"Listen to Papa. I do love you. With all my heart. Where is this coming from?"


"Becky says I'm gitimate, and I don't have a daddy, and momma got in trouble, and gitimate kids don't get loved."


Papa was stunned. "and who is Becky?"
"You know, Becky at church." For a moment, Papa thought he might need to pay a visit to Becky at church and Becky's mom, who was known to be quite a talker.


As Papa tried to put into words what he felt, he looked into the eyes of this little seven year old girl who was much too soon, having to hear this stuff. Who talked like this about children? Suddenly, an emotional tidal wave swept over him.


In an instant he was re-living every emotion, back in the rocking chair, in his living room, exactly where he was sitting when he heard the news of his daughter's pregnancy. It was perhaps the most devastating news, the most painful experience of his entire life. He had wept uncontrollably. His dreams, her dreams, dashed. He remembered the bile rising. The spasms. The pain in his chest. A piano could not have weighed more if placed firmly on his solar plexus. He couldn't speak. He could barely breathe. He found it hard to focus, his vision, or his hearing.


And the emotions: Despair. Rage. Anger. Disappointment. Self doubt. Recriminations for not being a better father. More rage, this time directed at the boy. Oh yeah, "They were in love. He was going to do the right thing." Great plan. He could have literally taken the life of that boy, and felt no regret. A few years in prison would be a fair exchange. What to do. More weeping. Than just more pain. It seemed unbearable. It took a couple of days to even breathe properly.


Now as he looked into the eyes of this little girl, he remembered another thought. A filthy, vile, disgusting, embarrassing thought. For a few moments, off and on, over a few days, after he had first received this very unwelcome news, he had entertained the consideration of suggesting an abortion. He was a Christian, grounded in the faith from a tender age, and yet when faced with every implication of his daughter being an un-wed expectant teen age mother, he had temporarily wavered.


He was looking into the eyes of a child, that in a weak moment, a moment of absolute despair, he had thought of aborting. My God! My God! My God! Forgive me.


He reached fully around his granddaughter and hugged her so hard she squirmed. Tears rolled down his cheeks. She pulled back and looked at him completely puzzled.


"What's the matter Papa. Why did you get sad?"


"Papa's not sad honey. Papa's happy. Sometimes I get so happy, my eyes make lots of tears. Listen, let's talk about Becky, ok?" She nodded.


"Becky doesn't have it quite right. Are you listening to Papa?"


"Yeah. I'm listening."


"First of all, Papa is a pretty smart expert on one thing, and that is, there are no gitimate children. Second of all, you have two daddies. Becky just doesn't know it. You have a spiritual daddy. God is your spiritual daddy. You can't see Him but He can see you and He watches you all day and all night. He can't wait for you to get up in the morning. He thinks you are very special. And you have Papa. I'm not your daddy, but I'm your Papa, and I do love you, and I think about you all day, and I can't wait to see you and talk to you.


And one more thing. Your momma is terrific. She was very young when you were born. But you know what. She thought you being born was the most important thing in the world. It was no trouble. Ok? Do you understand Papa?"


She was a-ok. They continued their walk briefly before she asked, "Papa?"


"Yes"


"I'm tired of walking. Think we should get some ice cream?"


Papa thought that buying this ice cream might just be the most important appointment he could have in the entire world. How thankful the rocking chair experience, and all the thoughts he entertained in that chair were firmly and finally in the past. He thought he might just make a point of rocking this little girl in that chair today. Create a little different memory. Yes indeed. Today would be a good day for a rocking.


In a time, when confusing messages come from all quarters, and admittedly, sometimes even from those raised in the faith, it seems to us there are at least three important messages that need to be heard:



No matter how a baby started, that baby can be and should be loved.

No matter how desperate the circumstances look to those closest to the expectant mom, someone should say, "We can do this, as a family, and make it work. We can do this."


And, to lonely scared Moms, "You are not, and you will not be alone."


Create options for walks by the ponds and shared ice cream, and rocks in the rocking chairs. Turn "someone in trouble" to "No Trouble."


Take a stand. Activate your faith.



[Received from the Oremus Prayer Network]

Popular posts from this blog

free shtuff!

Yesterday I came across a very cool free resource... so you know how designers can find online libraries of fonts as well as high quality, high resolution graphics and photographs? These are usually pay sites. Well check out stock.xchng . Wowsers. Don't be scared off by the required registration... it's all free! Looks like I won't be needing to take a digital camera to any of the tourist traps that I plan on visiting in my lifetime, I can just mooch better pics of said locations from this site! Makes for excellent browsing for awesome desktop background images. It's like Webshots on steroids. It's like discovering Google Maps after having just used MapQuest . (ps- Google Local now offers that map functionality fully integrated ..) Stumbling across that site set my mind rolling on free stuff. I just realized how my professional focus on open source software has been an extension of an interest in free stuff that I had back in high school . (for t

You wouldn't happen to have a few dollars so I can pay my electric bill, would you?

Friday during the day I had very little planned for the evening. I expected to go to the Havard's to jog with Robert-Michael and make some final arrangements for dog-sitting for them. I also made some last-minute plans to briefly join a group of friend's celebrating Allison's birthday, who I've gotten to know recently through a Lenten faith-sharing group. They intended to continue the celebrations later into the evening watching basketball, but I had a number of missed calls from Charles, so I ducked out halfway through. I'm also not much of a March Madness fan, which I know is blasphemy. :) Charles is a neighbor of mine with no steady employment who bikes around the neighborhood and near Notre Dame asking people for money and collecting cans and any scrap items he can recycle or pawn. When I first met him, he readily accepted prayers from me and a few friends, and told us how important smiling is as we parted ways. I've never given him money in the num

our Ford Explorer saga

Two weeks ago, Cathy & I drove up Greenlawn Ave heading toward my house, and when we took the left turn onto Cedar, I accelerated out of the turn in hope of fishtailing a little bit on the snow before straightening out, which I enjoy and feel like a race car driver when I do it. This time, instead of straightening out, my Explorer continued to rotate and turn on the ice, eventually sliding perpendicular to path of the road. We were slowing down, but not enough to avoid hopping the curb and giving a tree a little tap. It didn't sound too bad, but when I got out and looked, I saw a bumper bent in, headlights on one side cracked open, and the impact bending a side fender, contorting the wheel well. My heart dropped a little bit, I grimaced, and asked myself and Cathy why I had decided to do that. Approaching the holidays and the wedding, we did not need any new complications. We had a full day planned, so I put it out of my mind and decided I would get a quote on the repairs