So careful.
So tender.
I have never seen a father like him.
I see him at the pool fairly often. He brings his children to play on hot days, as we do. Few homes here have the luxury of air conditioning and summer can be down right sweltering. The pool is a cheap and enjoyable respite. The man is getting on in years, with salt-and-pepper hair and a lean build, unusually tall for the Balkans. His face and hands are worn with time and care and plenty of hard work, I imagine. He has several kids with him, ranging in age I would guess from early teen to toddler.
How patient he is with them.
It is clear that he is deaf, he never says a word and communicates with his children using a rough sign language I imagine is all his own. They use it with him as well, simple gestures, mostly. I am fascinated by the way he interacts with them. He is so careful with each one, making sure each has everything he or she needs. He pats and hugs them often, something I see little of here, as physical affection is not so freely given. He checks in with them often, and always has his eyes on them. The way those eyes look at them, I can tell his children are his pride and joy. His love for them is radiant and makes my throat swell as I watch them.
One of the older girls teases her little brother, maybe age three, who cries. The father walks over, shaking his finger. The girl shrugs sheepishly and holds her fingers apart as if to say "It was only a little bit." After comforting the boy he takes his daughter's face in his hands... And pats it softly. He looks deep into her eyes, expression full of unspoken words. Words of love, encouragement, a gentle chide. "You can do better, I know you can, my dear one, please do not do that again." I am left with that impression as he pats their heads and they go back to laughing in the water.
I pondered this family and the quiet, gentle man who leads it as we bump home over dusty roads, children's Sunday school songs blaring.
Why is this man so different? I wondered. I thought about his disability. He is unable to hear. Unable to hear society scream about the "right way" to do things, perhaps he relies more on instinct. Possible too, I mused, that as a deaf child he would have been treated much gentler when he himself was young, It is a norm here to treat children with disabilities differently -with more understanding and gentleness. Perhaps he grew up with that kind of treatment and naturally it flows from him now, easier than having to train oneself to be compassionate and respectful when it was not the way you were treated. Maybe the fact that he cannot hear has left him with an enhanced appreciation for life and the joys in it and it is this which gives him pause to treat his children with such special care. Of course, this is mostly speculation on my part. But what I really wonder is if this man's "disability" isn't really one at all, if it isn't in fact quite the opposite, that something about it gives this father an upper hand -an upper hand in loving.
What I've come away with is a picture of God's fatherly love for us. The Bible says he is "slow to anger" and that true love -to be received and also demonstrated by us to everyone in our lives- is full of patience, gentleness, selflessness, kindness, sacrifice. (1 Corinthians 13)
"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
And I think from now on whenever I think of God my Father, the image will flash into my mind of this tender father cradling his daughter's face in his hands.
