A Letter to My Father
I invited Fr. Colm McGlynn to write a letter to his father. He shared this poem in response.
Holding His Hand
Today we took a gentle stroll
From Rathfarnham Shopping Centre
To the post box in Templeogue village
And Dad, in his 83rd year,
Became so jaded
I had to hold his hand
Tears welled up in my heart
At this role reversal:
The man who held
My hand as a boy
Now in need of mine.
A Prayer from a Father
During the Vietnam War, an American soldier wrote a letter to his son, in which he seeks to give good advice about how to live a good life. The soldier died in action and the letter remained unfinished.
My dearest Phil,
In the last few months everything has become very clear to me. I have discovered the difference between the important and the trivial. Here is what I ask of you:
Worry about courage
Worry about goodness
Worry about family
Worry about friendship
Worry about honour
Worry about getting a good education
Worry about living a good life
Worry about making a difference
Worry about understanding people
Above all worry that you are making the best of your life and if you are bringing pain to another.
Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about setbacks
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault . . .
With a Little Comfort from Your Friends
In 1513, an Italian artist, Fra Giovanni Giocondo, wrote a letter to a friend who was in crisis. This is what he wrote:
I salute you. I am your friend and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not got; but there is much, very much, that while I cannot give you, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.
Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness, could we but see. And to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look! . . .
And so, my dear friend, I greet you. Not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks, and the shadows fall.