Father-Daughter Communication

Credit: 123rf

As the latest wave of superinvolved parents delivers its children to college, institutions are building into the day . . . activities meant to speed the separation.

“Are you angry with me?” I ask;
as I ask I hear an unmanly lilt in the
question, not unlike the sound

chimpanzees make when attempting
appeasement of a superior,
I cringe all unwanted, grimacing

into the phone, “No,
“No! NO!!” she says,
before detailing, machine-gun fast,

each unreasonable demand all the anxious
hovering acts and I acknowledge
your honor I am guilty, guilty, guilty,

then a soft percussive sigh
out with the bad father and now
IN with . . . sanity? serenity?

“Okay,” I say, “just so long as
I understand the rules,
No texting, no emails;”

sound of her laughter floating
there in the wireless ether she
could be in another dimension

for all I know, but that laugh
grounds me, “Letters,” she says,
“handwritten, like we used to do.”

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Bakhtin - Corridos de Un Vaquero Perdido

44 years in ministry, 28 in chaplaincy, a bivocational minister serving Iglesia Bill Harrod (copastor with wife Linda Wilkerson) & Baylor Health (VP Mission & Ministry). Any opinions expressed are strictly my own and cannot be blamed on my employers or on my wife!

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