Winter Park Aglow Community Lighthouse Meeting

Only A Dad

Only a dad with a tired face

Coming home from the daily race

Bringing little of gold or fame

To show how well he has played the game,

But glad in his heart that his own rejoice

To see him come and to hear his voice.

Only a dad with a brood of four,

One of ten million men or more,

Plodding along in the daily strife

Bearing the whips and the scorns of life;

With never a whimper of pain or hate

For the sake of those who at home await.

Only a dad neither rich nor proud,

Merely one of the surging crowd,

Facing whatever may come his way,

Silent whenever the harsh condemn,

And bearing it all for the love of them.

Only a dad, but he gives his all

To smooth the way for his children small,

Doing with courage, stern and grim

The deeds that his father did for him.

This is the line that for him I pen,

Only a dad but the best of men.

By: Edgar A Guest

http://festivals.iloveindia.Com/fathers-day/poems/spiritual- poems.html

This poem reminds me of my own father. There were four of us children, and my dad worked out in the heat of summer and the cold of winter in a wrecking and scrap iron company. He never had time to sit down and tell us what he was doing or his family history; for when he came home, there was more work to be done on the farm that I grew up on in the hills of southern Ohio.

My father turned to cheap wine so he could keep on going. This made for very dysfunctional family life. I felt that I could not love him the way a daughter should love her father; but as I am older now, I can more easily understand what it was like for him. He had very little education, and could barely write his name.

I weep for my father, and what I wish might have been; but I am grateful for his support of his family. We were never hungry, and we had clothing to wear. My three brothers and I all graduated from high school - thanks to the efforts of my father and mother.

He is hopefully in Heaven now, and I look forward to seeing him some day and tell him how thankful that I am that he was a good father.

God bless all the fathers who are out there in this world who are struggling to provide for their families.