Happy Fathers Day
A Father’s Day Special Blog by Inés Mittal Gros
I’ve always wanted one. Not in the literal sense, but in the way a daughter watches her father and thinks, I want that. That quiet solidity in the way he owns it. That thing he carries without announcing it. The beard, I think, was always part of him. Not a crown or a throne that needs to be fought for, but more like a foundation. Something built slowly, maintained carefully, there before you understood what it meant.
From a Man to a Father
When a man becomes a father, there are three canon events: he cries at your birth, he develops opinions about your life choices, and you will inevitably get itched by the beard (I can’t promise you’re the favourite, but the beard doesn’t discriminate). It grows, and it goes, as time goes on. From black to the first specks of white, until one day you look again and it’s entirely white, and you wonder where all the time went. The beard, as many might say, is a love-hate relationship between a father and a child.
Beard, a Definition?
Personally, I really liked tugging that patch of hair just under his lip, the one that made his mouth go pop. Mostly because it annoyed him, and annoying him was how I liked to say I love you. And I really hated (in the best way) when he’d rub his face against mine, making my whole face itch, while I’d scream and kick and laugh and beg him to stop. My dad might not define himself by his beard. But I saw him as the beard he wore my whole life. Groomed, taken care of, cut short, and shaped during his ‘long beard era.’ I can positively say I’ve never seen him without one, and I fear the day I do. Some part of me thinks I wouldn’t recognise him and instead would look at him with a face of bewilderment like those babies going viral on reels, with my jaw on the floor and eyes wide like plates.
Beard, an Identity?
Perhaps it’s a way of identifying your own kin, or perhaps you’re so used to something that when it’s missing, it feels like the whole world has shifted off its axis.
Something tells me (and maybe you feel it too) that the beard came before us. Before the partner, before the kids, before the responsibility. The beard was always the plan. We were just a bonus. I’m sure they’d all deny it. But I’ve never once seen a father with a dishevelled beard. That’s why this Father’s Day, instead of wishing the man, I wish the beard.
A father with its own identity, and witness to the happiest moments as well as the saddest and most painful ones.
