After my parents passed away - in 2000 and 2003 - I felt I could take the time to think about the past and imagine what it would have been like to be my grandmother.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
I always wanted a father. Any kind. A strict one, a funny one, one who bought me pink dresses, one who wished I was a boy. One who traveled, one who never got up out of his Morris chair. Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. I wanted shaving cream in the sink and whistling on the stairs. I wanted pants hung by their cuffs from a dresser drawer. I wanted change jingling in a pocket and the sound of ice cracking in a cocktail glass at five thirty. I wanted to hear my mother laugh behind a closed door.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a deep longing for the presence and characteristics of a father figure in one's life.
In this quote, Judy Blundell conveys a profound yearning for paternal affection and the diverse roles that a father could embody. The speaker reminisces about the various ways a father could influence their life, highlighting a desire for varied experiences, emotional warmth, and familial interactions, which are all crucial for personal development and a sense of belonging.
In practice
During a Father's Day speech, this quote could be shared to express the importance of fathers in shaping our lives.
After my parents passed away - in 2000 and 2003 - I felt I could take the time to think about the past and imagine what it would have been like to be my grandmother.
Where I grew up, I feel lucky to have been from there. The culture in general is rooted with a strong sense of family; of kin; of place, geographically; of tradition. There's a resilience, a strong will to make it. I mean, heck, it was settled by a bunch of outcasts that didn't fit in.
The babe at first feeds upon the mother's bosom, but it is always on her heart.
How beautiful it is to learn that Grace isn't fragile, and that in the family of God we can fail and not be a failure.
All of us remember the home of our childhood. Interestingly, our thoughts do not dwell on whether the house was large or small, the neighborhood fashionable or downtrodden. Rather, we delight in the experiences we shared as a family. The home is the laboratory of our lives, and what we learn there largely determines what we do when we leave there.
Being a good parent will necessarily break our hearts as we watch a child grow and eventually choose their own way, even through many of the same heartbreaks we have traversed.
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