Honoring Your Father by Holding His Hand
I was ten years old when a Doberman bit me on the heel.
It bit me on the heel because I was running, screaming from it.
This was not one of Pavlov’s dogs, but an ordinary, untrained animal responding with the instincts of nature’s aggression toward a willing victim who had only learned so far in life to act like one when trouble arises.
My father came running down from the house, saw what had happened – the blood and my tears and the beast comfortably but expeditiously galloping to a retreat inside his owner’s property line. No stranger to calculation as a mathematician, my father deduced that the blood was far less in volume than my tears, and this was a chance to give me a priceless gift.
Before specific anxieties and phobias could set in, he grabbed my tiny hand in his own and marched on down toward the animal, who had now crouched down on his haunches in a stance of readiness for anything that was about to happen. It seemed ill-advised and dangerous to my ten-year-old mind to continue to approach the beast for no reason that I could decipher. But not to my father, who was determined to show me that not only was I safe with him, but could be safe when confronted with, and more importantly - and of more advantage in life - safe when purposely confronting danger. As a pilot, he was no stranger to this either, since he had confronted deadly situations in the air more than anyone’s fair share of times.
“all I could see in his piercing blue eyes was a complex cluster of the various variables of what could only be described as disappointment.”
I instinctually ripped my hand out of his and ran back up to the house. When he reached me back home, breathless from chasing after me, he didn’t say anything. And all I could see in his piercing blue eyes was a complex cluster of the various variables of what could only be described as disappointment.
It has taken me many years to sort through – was it disappointment in me, his son (which it seemed to me to be at the time), or in himself (which seemed to me to be the case once I reached adulthood, that I didn’t trust him enough), or was it as I see it now - being ever closer to the same age he was at his passing on – a complex disappointment in “us” as father and son in a complex culture, the lessons in life he had to share, bottled up and saved for the right day of my life in which to share them, nevertheless do not get communicated, do not have a channel over which to do so, and least of all, as society’s trends into divorce and fading male voices would have it – do not get honored through being taught to sons via action. Action that does not need words to express and explain it and is all the more poignant and memorable for so being, silently absorbed into the senses, the musculature and the reflexes of the son.
Only a few years after that, my mother made plans to divorce him, and I saw that same look in his eye more and more often. A few years after that, the divorce papers were ready to sign, and he died alone in a dark basement room, before signing them.
Still missing my father over thirty years since his death, I feel that his disappointment was a sadness not specifically directed at me, nor at himself, nor even at the culture surrounding fathers and sons, but was the feeling of saudade – the mixture of joy at remembrance and the sadness of its absence – like a kind of hunger for food combined with the savoring of the delicious memory of what one’s favorite food tastes like. In my father’s case, the hunger was for the sustenance and support provided to the soul of a virtuous and generous man, through honor and being honored.
“my own young son has reached the age of grasping his tiny little hand in mine for all kinds of reasons.”
I wouldn’t have focused down on the connection between honor and holding our fathers’ hand if not for the fact that my own young son has reached the age of grasping his tiny little one in mine for all kinds of reasons.
Some of these include the fear that bad people will break into the house, or that Supervillains from the movies could snatch him as we cross the street. His fits entirely into my own, completely covered by my weathered, calloused palm. The fearful look in his eyes when we do this would brighten and calm, every time.
This has been a natural habit until one time recently, such a common experience stopped me in my tracks, tearful, hand-in-hand on the sidewalk, and I remembered the Doberman for the first time in decades. He was holding my hand and that simple, wordless action could only be described as a feeling of being joined by this concept of honor. Which is to say that he felt safe with me by virtue of what I’ve been through and learned, and I felt a feeling of love in the knowledge that such lessons were being well-used for their retained, ongoing value. We knew as a father-son “us” that strangers would not break in, and dogs will not be able to bite. A feeling not of praise or even admiration, but of being joined in a special connection, and one in which neither of us had that look I so often saw in the eyes of my father when I ripped my hand out of his.
I was young when I lost my father, he himself dying at a young age, and I am now myself an older father to have such a young son. Yet worrying about such things all seems to evaporate when holding hands. The honor in so doing feels like an ultimate salve for stress, fear and anxiety, and is less and less available to grandfathers, fathers and sons who would still have a physical, emotional and intellectual connection if it were not for the loss and separation caused by divorce, disease and death, and some aspects of culture that turn a blind eye to their impact on men today.
Since my youth, I have traded the fear of dogs for the fear of plane flight. Turbulence is terrifying for me, and of necessity, I need to fly often.
But I have learned a lesson from my son and his little hand. Although my father is long gone and I can no longer physically hold his hand, I have learned to close my eyes high in the stratosphere, where I secretly hold his hand still, because I still want to honor him, connect with him, where I even talk to him, and we have our connection.
And that is precisely the place – the only place – where alone, we convene – my dad the pilot and I – to talk. At 30,000 feet. In my mind’s silence, among the clouds, with the air currents whizzing by, that it is the only time I can clearly hear him.
It is the only time that I feel a connection in which he hears me. And when he makes me feel better, even though gone for thirty years.
“I imagine that I hear him whisper back, “It’s ok… I’m your Daddy… I still take care of you"
I tell him how terrified I feel as the plane bumps and lists and yaws to the side in the dust devils of Arizona’s sky or the thunderstorms of Iowa’s dark clouds. I imagine that I hear him whisper back, “It’s ok. Remember, I’m a pilot. And I’m your Daddy… I still take care of you. Look. Look up. Behind that locked door up the aisle, in the cockpit. I’m in there. It’s me. And I will get you home.”
I thank him, and calm down.
“We” still exist as father and son through this bond, the honoring of all the good things he did to make my life a better one, which still retains value, and helps me and is useful. Which is honor. Relaxing into the flight, I can tell him of my news, both my struggles and the small victories since the last time we talked. It is a secret, sacred meeting between the love of a boy for a deceased father, and the inexplicably ongoing care of a loving father for a son fighting his way through the obstacles of the world – only made possible through the existence of this psychological principle, called honor: that the things he’s learned, done and taught still have value and worth, and benefit my life and those to whom I pass them on.
There is still a relationship with him which is very much alive, evolving, growing, and amplified by crucial turning points in life such as starting a family, making a career change, or facing a threat to myself or my family such as the global pandemic (and still having to fly on airplanes during them, simply because it is necessary.)
These “necessary things” during times of crisis are where I find my father again, and the power of that ongoing connection to him transcends even the cold facts of his body’s mortality, or mine. The image of holding his hand has become, for me, the physical representation of the ongoing relationship and its very real and ongoing psychology.
Honor is not about envisioning the future, but of harvesting value from the past, preserving and carrying wisdom into the future to make it a better one. And so we must take the research of the current day and tie it to about as far back in the past as we can go: the philosophy that predates and informs modern psychology.
When you apply this valuable resource to your life – whether that is in the form of overcoming the fear or dogs or planes, or home invasions, or in the slow building of your career or family, planning for education, retirement or the improvement of your physical health and ultimately, your lifespan – it can be a daunting concept to wrap your mind around, and one which risks making your father invisible to you and all those you could benefit.
While all this while there has been a simple thing that you can do to begin to tap into this power.
If your father is alive, then you have the chance to do what you may not have done in a very long time: hold his hand, see how that feels, and see what you learn in the conversation that rises from it.
If he is no longer with us, understanding this concept of honor means that the generosity and investment that he has made in you still lives.
Close your eyes, and imagine holding his hand, to feel the emotions that rise up, the ideas that you’d forgotten, and the advice that you know he would give you will still be there.
It may even sound as if he is still here, saying it.
Your connection to him is still here, and its honor still alive, through the psychology of holding his hand.
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Disclaimer: This article is for information purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy, legal advice, or other professional opinion. Never disregard such advice because of this article or anything else you have read from the Centre for Male Psychology. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of, or are endorsed by, The Centre for Male Psychology, and we cannot be held responsible for these views. Read our full disclaimer here.
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