Two Fathers, Two Little Boys

Two incidents have remained in my mind for years.  I'll take the later one, which happened when I was in my early twenties, first.

I saw a little boy, who couldn't have been more than six [if he was that old], walking with his father. The child looked up and said, "I love you, Daddy."

But did his father hug him the way a normal father would?

No.

He shook his finger in the boy's face and said in a tough, hard, completely unfatherly voice, "MEN don't say I love you to other MEN!"

I felt so bad... so sorry... for both of them.  And I remember thinking, "I hope I never marry a man like that."

Now for the earlier incident.. which is a good memory. I was only a little girl, not even eight years old but I've never forgotten.

I was sitting on a bench on Ocean Parkway with my Baba and her sister, my Aunt Lily.  On the bench across from ours sat a little boy and his father.  They were looking at a picture book.

And then the father said, "Let's go home now and fix dinner and surprise Mommy when she gets home from her club meeting."

I hope that boy grew up to be like his father.