Some many years after Dante, as a nine year old, had seen Beatrice, he saw her again as an adult. There was no hope they could ever be together. He loved her anyway.
Gentleman
This is the image of a gift you've been granted. Embrace it. Live up to it. Be husbands. Be fathers. Recognize the beauty that has been offered to your humility.
If you are so gifted to have a Sophia, or a Sheila--or an Elizabeth or a Grace or an Eamon or Liam. Come to know them for the gifts to you that they are. The faces they show you are facets that otherwise you would not know.
Know them and come to know yourself.
And then abandon that part of you that thinks that they show you something about you. They don't. They show you something you need to know that you wouldn't know without them.
(image: © 2008 Jonamac Productions, "Dante and Beatrice", 1883, by Henry Holiday. Antonio Corsi posed as Dante. Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, England)
2 comments:
Interestingly, Em and I were just talking about the same kind of thing recently. I'd had a moment of realizing what a grace and privilege it is to know my own children, and decided I shouldn't take that reality for granted ever again.
Yeah--there's nothing like being a parent to begin to put things in perspective. It's amazing to me sometimes.
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