love’s austere and lonely offices

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays

It wasn’t until I had children of my own that I realized what an ungrateful child I am. And the realization dawned on me because Jack and Peter, for all their charms, are a pair of ingrates of the highest order.

But at the same time, I realized that it doesn’t bother me that Jack and Peter never thank me for the things I do for them, and probably won’t even think of it until they have children of their own. And by then they’ll understand, too–being a Dad isn’t a job we do for any sort of pay.

My father taught me that, and of all his lessons it was the love of a father for his children that I value the most.