What Are Fathers
Made Of?
By: Paul Harvey
A father is a person that is forced to endure childbirth without an anesthetic.
A father is a person that growls when he feels good;
and laughs out loud when scared half to death.
A father never feels worthy of the worship in a child’s eyes.
He’s never quite the hero his daughter thinks;
never quite the man his son believes him to be,
and this worries him.
So he works too hard to try and smooth the rough places in the road for
those of his own who will follow him.
A father is a person who gets angry when the first school grades
aren’t as good as he thinks they should be.
He scolds his son; though he knows it’s the teacher’s fault.
Fathers are persons that give daughters away to
other men who aren’t nearly good enough,
so they can have grandchildren who are smarter than anybody’s.
Fathers make bets with insurance companies about who’ll live the longest.
One day they lose, and the bet’s paid off
to the part of them they leave behind.
I don’t know where a father goes when he dies,
but I’ve an idea that after a good rest
he won’t just sit on a cloud and wait
for the girl he loved and the children she bore.
He’ll be busy there, too; repairing the stairs,
oiling the gates,
improving the streets…smoothing the way.