A Father's Day prayer

By JAMES MCGUINNESS- | Comments: 0 | Leave a comment

Last year, we all converged in Cleveland for a family wedding on Father's Day weekend. The wedding was a lavish affair, but that wasn't the only thing going on: The Pittsburgh Pirates, who were staying in our hotel, were in town for a three-game series that would finish with a sold-out tie-breaker on Sunday; one of my granddaughters celebrated her ninth birthday on Sunday; and Cleveland had declared that week to be "Marine Week."

The Marines celebrated with a spectacular flourish. There were actually Harrier jets at Burke Lakefront Airport. They closed off Public Square to traffic and the Marines brought in a Cobra helicopter, gunships, tanks, armored vehicles, grenade launchers and a howitzer.

Everywhere, there were hundreds of Marines, stooping to pick up small kids, help them into the cockpit, pull them through the hatch or seat them behind the machine gun. They patiently answered the dumbest questions over and over again.

Down at the bottom of 9th Street, they brought in the travelling Vietnam Memorial, with a Marine silently walking its length. They did the "wreathing ceremony" at sundown. It's a very moving ceremony.

That's where I saw them. The boy was about five years old; his attractive mother, about 25. Her Marine hadn't come home. She had brought his son downtown in honor of Father's Day, and out of respect for the service to which his father had committed so completely.

I had a marvelous Father's Day. I got to be with all seven of my grandchildren. We hit the hotel pool and the 4th Street outdoor cafes. We danced at the wedding. We even went out on Lake Erie in my brother's 39-foot sailboat. It was a spectacular weekend - for me.

For the fatherless five-year-old boy, not so much. Oh, he had his head filled with a thousand exciting images. He saw fantastic equipment. He saw so many men wearing the same uniform that he sneaks into his mother's closet to look at when she doesn't know.

The next time he makes that secret journey, he will impute a composite of all of their strong and beautiful characteristics to the invisible owner of that uniform. His father will have the strongest arms, the brightest smile, the most handsome face, and know all of the technical specifications for all that equipment.

But that boy wouldn't be at the "Jake" for the Pirates game on Sunday with the 43,000 other fathers and sons who sold out the stadium.

As for his mother, her Father's Day was gut-wrenching. She will struggle to get through every Father's Day for the rest of her life. Each year will be more difficult than the last, because each year the boy will become more and more like his father. Heredity will shock her with its ability to clone. At the end of every Father's Day, the boy will hear her sobbing into her pillow alone.

Then, one day, before she is even 40 years old, the boy will turn 18. I know what he is going to do on his 18th birthday. There is no question about that.

I pray that she will not be presented with a second flag.

(Mr. McGuinness, a father of four, owns a computer consulting firm in Schenectady and attends St. Kateri Tekakwitha parish there.)[[In-content Ad]]