Children's drawing, which turned the life of his father

Dr. Gehry Rosberg is a well-known family consultant, author of numerous books, a happy father of two daughters and a grandfather of seven grandchildren. But he was not always so positive.

I sat in my favorite chair and reread the dissertation project, as my daughter abruptly tore me:
- Dad, do you want to see my drawing of our family?
- Daughter, Dad is now busy, come on a little later, - after 10 minutes, she came again.
- Dad, let me show you a picture of our family! - I already started to lose patience:
- Daughter, I'm busy now, come on later.

But after another three minutes, she again broke into my office and asked in a menacing voice:
- So will you look at the picture or not?
“No,” I replied, “I won't,” only after she left and left me alone. But this peace was somehow ghostly. In fact, I felt like a complete asshole.
I left the office and called my daughter:
- Sarah, come back for a moment, Dad wants to look at your drawing.
She came back and put her work on the cover of my laptop. In large letters on the sheet was written "Our family."
“Tell me about the drawing,” I said.
- Here is the mother (slim figure with yellow hair), here I am next to my mother, here is our little dog, and here is Missy (younger sister, who for some reason was three times more in the picture at home).
- This is a wonderful drawing, honey. I will hang him in the living room to see him every time I return from work.

My daughter came back to play, I went back to my books. But he could not concentrate. I reread the same paragraph and still did not understand anything.
Something kept me from concentrating.
Something in the picture of Sarah.
There was something missing.

I called her again.
“Sarah, daughter, come to dad, I want to ask you something about your drawing,” she came back and looked at me. I still remember this look and the whole scene to the smallest detail - her cheeks flushed by the running about, her funny doll under her arm. I asked her a question, although I was afraid to hear the answer:
- Daughter, here in the picture you have both mother and you, and sister and dog, and house and sun, and squirrels and trees, but where is dad?
“And you're in your office,” she said. And with this simple answer, my little princess turned everything in my life. Time seemed to stop. I leaned back in my chair and tried to calm down a bit - my heart began to pound too much. Even as I type this text, I still feel the full horror of that moment.

Rosberg added his experience with a child to the book by Keri Casey. Change Guide for each father
I hung a picture in the living room - as promised to my daughter. And a few weeks while I was preparing to defend my dissertation, I looked at this drawing at home. I didn’t have the heart to discuss this with my wife. And in an amazing way, she did not ask me. In the end I defended myself. Now I am not just Rosberg, but Dr. Rosberg. But I was somehow not particularly pleased. One evening I decided to discuss this incident with my wife.

- Barbara, you saw this picture, why don't you say anything about it?
“I knew how much it hurt you,” she replied. Then I asked, probably the most difficult question for me:
- Barbara, I want to return. Do you think I can? - twenty seconds of silence seemed like an eternity to me.
“Gary,” she began very softly, “and I and the girls, we all love you very much.” We really want you to come back. But you seemed not to live with us for many years and I felt alone. - In her words was not a reproach, but only pain. My daughter painted a picture, the wife said it with words - I thought that the family could be “on autopilot”. And now I need to go a long way to regain normal relations with my wife and children.

For the next two years I tried my best to be in the family. I played with my daughters in all possible games, invited my wife for dates, in general, tried as best I could. And only two years later I received the most expensive gift - a new family drawing. Figure, on which I was in the center. Now he hangs in my office. I lived a family reunion story thanks to the nobility of the three most precious women in my life. You have probably all heard of the prodigal son from the Bible. A son who left his father and wandered in a foreign land, but was forgiven and accepted by his father. In my case, I was lost — not a son, but a father.

Go back home, fathers. Life is short.

Excerpt from “21 day dad’s challenge”, Carey Casey