A Father’s Gift (Quote of the Day / Phyllis Theroux)

Phyllis Theroux writes about what her father gave her in the essay, “My Father, the Prince” in Peripheral Visions (Morrow, 1982):

“There are some people, and my father is one of them, who carry the flint that lights other people’s torches. They get them all excited about the possibilities of an idea, the ‘can-do’ potential of one’s own being.

“That was my father’s gift to me, and whatever psychic wounds remain to thrashed out between us are still lying on the floor of my unconscious, waiting for deep therapy to uncover. The fact is I am closer to my mother. But they say that a daughter carries around the infection of her father for life.

“They are right.”

© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.