Emma and I often talk by text or e-mail or Facetime these days, I use new technology all the time but i will never get totally used to it, really, nor, I think, do most people who remember when we spoke directly to the people we loved. Emma posted this photo on Facebook earlier in the day, it was taken at the Children’s Zoo in the Bronx Zoo in New York city many years ago.

Her message to me popped up on Facebook a couple of hours ago, it  said “Happy Father’s Day, pop. I’ll call you later.” It was very much Emma, to the point unemotional, with a touch of irony.

Emma is in her thirties now,  she has her own beautiful daughter Robin, and her successful and fulfilling life in Brooklyn. She is happily married, loves her job, is successful in a difficult environment, and lives with a clear head and two feet firmly on the ground. She abandoned her brief and successful life as a book writer, and said she simply needed more security in her life, as in a regular paycheck and the chance to save money.

This made me sad, but I accept it. She knows what is best for her. The writer’s life is most often quite insane. Sane people avoid it.

Looking at this photo, my heart did a bit of a jig, it seems like many worlds ago.

Emma was once the soul and  center of my life, now we live apart, we see one another four five times a year, and try to talk on the phone on most Sundays. I would say we are close and committed to one another, but very different from the many families I see whose lives are entangled with one another.

Our conversations are short and businesslike and  declarational – we talk of our work, our weeks, our challenges, we talk mostly of  Robin. Neither of us wear our emotions on our sleeves.

I don’t want us to be knee deep in each others’ business, and neither does she, so I think we both got our wish. A friend of mine, who dotes on her grandchildren, is just bewildered by me, she cannot imagine that I am not in New York every other week, or that  Emma and I are not closely tied into one another’s life.

I did that once, it wasn’t right for me, or for Emma.

I don’t feel the need to say this to people, but of course I love Emma with all of my heart,  I think of her every day and burst with pride at the determined way in which she has built a full and fulfilling life. Could a father want anything more than that?

It is difficult to be a mother in America, it is difficult to be a father. Parenting is never really easy or clear.

I often wonder just what it means to be a father in modern times, when the roles of men and women and children have evolved so dramatically. When I thought about it, which was often, I came to the idea that my job was to prepare Emma for life as best I could, and then get out-of-the-way.

I see fathers and mothers who are  tangled up in knots by and with their children, who know everything about them, and who are defined by them. I did not want that. I wanted to live my life, I wanted Emma to live hers, and Robin too. I wanted there to be space between us.

Like Maria, I often ask myself what is wrong with me, I don’t see myself in many other families. A therapist told me there was nothing wrong with me, I was just broken and am always trying to put the pieces back to together.

Emma does not need to be worrying about me at this point in my life, and while I always stand ready to help her, one of the better things about her life is that she doesn’t need my help to run it, she is doing very well. She knows I am here and will always be here.

We all deal the hands we get, and midway sometime in her adolescence, I began my long and deep struggle with mental illness in an open and painful way. In a way, I left my family and fled to the country where I thought my life would be saved by new experience, spiritual exploration, animals, nature and love. In a sense, I was gone.

As it happened, I was right about what I had to do, but there was much blood spilled before I got it all together. Most of it was mine, I am happy to say, but it is not good for anyone in a family to be around that.

Emma handled it well, she became self-directed and self-sufficient. She finds my life a bit bewildering, I think and does not ask me for advice or guidance, at least not often.  I don’t believe she reads my books, once in awhile we cross paths on Facebook.

She can take care of herself. She doesn’t want to know too much about my life, I don’t probe too deeply about hers.

She is a mother now, and that has brought us closer in a number of ways. I think she understands me better, and I think I understand her better. Having a child is a place where we can both come together. There is no other kind of love like it. I think she is the most wonderful person, honest and generous and talented and full of love.

There are many ways in which we are alike, many ways in which we are different.

I accept our relationship, it is strong and loving and full of respect, we are each individuals in our own way, living our own lives. But there are powerful threads that connect us to one another.

Looking at this photo breaks my heart a little, I so loved taking care of Emma as a child, caring for her was the great privilege and meaning in my life. I have given  rebirth to myself, and found love and meaning in another way. I am  where I belong, and so is she.

Much as I resist nostalgia, I do wish that moment in the photo above could have lasted for every, we were soon  petting a goat and laughing.  So thanks for the Facebook thumbs up, Em, and right back atcha.

I love you too, Em, and thanks for the wonderful privilege of my being  your father, once and always. It was a glorious time in my life, and a thrill to see the way you are raising your daughter. She will thank you for it.