Note: Guest reflection by Terry Chapman.

It has been said many times that “so goes the father, so goes the son”, and in my lifetime this has held true.  My father passed on to me the steady and non-judgmental love that helped make me a similar person in personality and actions.  But fathering goes much deeper than that, doesn’t it?  A good father teaches his son or daughters by his own examples of caring, by both the little things like a special birthday treat and the large things such as working hard for a promotion to pay for their college degree.  Both types of caring are understood at the primal level, often years later when the man or woman realize how much the father and mother have done to launch them successfully into the slipstream of life—with all its opportunities, challenges, hopes and fulfillment!

My father bought me small skis when I was 10 years old and we skied together down a rather meager slope near our home in suburban Maryland.  But we were together doing something we both enjoyed.  I don’t recall my Dad saying “I love you”, but it was quite clear he did and my brother and I depended on his constancy of affection and he always found time to spend with us.  My father “read” to my deaf brother who could not hear, read or speak, by gesturing what a specific machine did in the Popular Mechanics magazine pictures of the 1950’s. Unending patience was his gift to my younger brother. I helped by watching over him when my parents were away. Like father, like son.

And now, as my sons are married and one has twin daughters, I see them both nurturing and showing those they love, what love truly means: spending time being with someone without thought of a return. I golf with both sons and fish with one son as the drawing above amusingly combines. Shared activities with them over the years reflect the best I have to give.    Fatherly love then gets passed from generation to generation.  A marvelous way to pass on the best you have to give another.  Like father, like sons!

-Terry Chapman