One thing EVERY father has, and should use…

READ UNTIL THE END…

I was with my family at my aunt’s house. She lived in a pretty nice area. She had an amazing back yard with a man made pond. The pond had koi fish and water turtles, with tiny tadpoles that you could see zooming from side to side.

To a child the pond would probably be huge! At this particular family gathering there was a lot of children. I usually play games with the kids and try to keep the children occupied.

My daughter didn’t have any cousins or friends her age to play with so she began to pick at me. Lucky me! She’d tag me and run. I didn’t respond, I was preoccupied with whatever I was doing, most likely on my phone. But she was very persistent. In her eyes we were going to play no matter what I was doing! After tapping me and running several times, she finally caught my attention.

In my mind, I thought, “Okay, if she does it one more time, I’m going to tag her back and then run away from her.” Of course, she did it again. I played as if I wasn’t paying attention again, and then sprung after her. I tagged her on her hand before she could run away. Startled, she jumped and let out a big yelling laugh. Her smile could’ve lit up the whole yard from her excitement. After her initial shock, still smiling, She began to chase me.

Allow me to pause. Envision her chasing me as I run in a big circle. 

In the back of my mind (A Father’s Intuition) I thought, I should probably stay away from the pond. In her excitement she’s not going to remember the pond on the other side of this sharp corner.  Instead, I imagined, oh, it’ll be fine, she’ll be okay.

So I bent around the turn and kept running. I stopped and turned around about ten steps after the pond.
I then saw her finally coming around the corner, smiling and laughing as she yelled, “Daddy, I’m gonna get you.” She suddenly disappeared out of sight…

She had fallen into the pond!

The joy and excitement in her eyes while we were playing, now turned to complete fear and shock under the water. I could tell she was trying to gasp for air, but in shock she wasn’t aware she was under water.

Now consider this, if she had remained calm, maybe she could have stood up, and just maybe her nose would have cleared the water of the pond, but she was scared, and daddy wasn’t close enough to reach out and save her.

As I was running as fast as I could towards her, it seemed like an eternity before I made it to her. She didn’t hear me yelling, “Stand up baby! Stand up!”
In that moment I jumped in, picking her up by one arm nearly pulling it out of place. I immediately jumped out of the water, squeezing her tight to my heart. She began spitting up from all of the water she ingested.

In that moment all I could think of were two things…

1) Lord, please let my princess be okay!
2) I wish I would have trusted my “Fatherly Intuition.”

As I woke up from this horrible nightmare I jumped out of bed to go check on all five of my children. I thought to myself, trust your instincts man, trust your instincts. Instincts + Gut feeling = Father’s Intuition

Have you ever had a father’s intuition moment?  Was it a trusted feeling or a learned lesson? Share your father’s intuition moment with us.

Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, & Facebook @LineBackerDAD

Join the mailing list to receive my monthly posts & information.
[mail-subscribe]

LinebackerDad