By Theresa Rézeau 

Surely the true measure of a father is not what he possesses, but what he refuses to abandon.

Years ago, when Syrian refugees were beginning to arrive in the United Kingdom following the devastation of war, I was passing through Green Park Station when a man approached me. Beside him stood his wife and three children.

He asked if I could help.
I gave him what I could.

The exchange lasted only a moment. He thanked me and continued on his way. Yet something about him remained with me. It was not simply the fact that he had asked for help. It was the look in his eyes. There was sadness there, but also something else: responsibility.

This Father's Day, I find myself thinking about him. Many people would have seen a man asking for money. I saw a father.

In wealthy cities, we often measure success by what a person possesses. We notice the suit, the watch, the car, the postcode, the restaurant reservation. We assume strength belongs to those who appear self-sufficient. Yet life has a way of disrupting such assumptions.

Sometimes strength looks very different.
Sometimes strength is a father standing in a train station asking strangers for help because there are children depending on him.

What makes the memory linger is the setting in which it occurred.

Green Park Station sits at the heart of one of the wealthiest districts in the world. A short walk away are the luxury boutiques of Bond Street, the private clubs of Mayfair, grand hotels, embassies, and institutions that have long symbolised prosperity and influence. Every day, fortunes move through these streets. Wealth is displayed in shop windows. Success is advertised on billboards. Achievement is measured, admired, and often envied.

Yet beneath this landscape of abundance stood a father who had been displaced by war. The contrast was impossible to ignore.

We often imagine poverty and wealth as existing in separate worlds. In reality, they frequently stand only a few metres apart. One person emerges from a chauffeur-driven car while another wonders how to feed a family. One is discussing investment portfolios while another is carrying the uncertainty of tomorrow. The distance between them is measured not in geography, but in circumstance.

What struck me was not the difference in wealth. It was the shared humanity.

For all our divisions of nationality, class, religion, and politics, certain responsibilities remain universal. Parents worry about their children. Fathers want to protect their families. Mothers hope for a better future. Beneath every headline and every debate about migration, economics, or conflict lies a simple human reality: people trying to care for those they love.

Perhaps this is why I remember him.
Not because he was Syrian.
Not because he asked for money.
But because of what I thought I saw.

I cannot know what he was thinking. Perhaps he was worried. Perhaps he was frightened. Perhaps he was simply exhausted. Trauma, uncertainty, and desperation have a way of reshaping a person's world. Yet what struck me was that he was not alone. Beside him stood his wife and children, and whatever burdens he carried seemed inseparable from theirs.

There is a particular humility in asking for help that those who have never needed to do so rarely consider. Most of us spend our lives trying to appear capable. We build careers, accumulate qualifications, establish reputations, and construct identities around competence and independence. To ask for help can feel like a confession of failure. To ask strangers for help can feel even more difficult.

What must it take for a father to overcome that barrier? How many times had he been ignored that day? How many times had people walked past without making eye contact? How many times had he repeated the same request?

I do not know.

What I do know is that asking for help requires its own form of courage. Pride tells us to remain silent. Love tells us to speak. Pride tells us to protect our image. Love tells us to protect those entrusted to our care.

The moment a parent places the needs of a child above the preservation of pride, something extraordinary occurs. The fear of embarrassment becomes less important than the responsibility to provide. The judgement of strangers becomes less significant than the wellbeing of a family.

This is why I did not see weakness in that encounter. I saw sacrifice.

The man at Green Park Station may once have had a profession, a home, a business, or plans for the future interrupted by forces beyond his control. I do not know his story. What struck me was not where he had come from, but what remained.

His family remained. And he was still trying.

The artist and writer Khalil Gibran's Anguish (1914) captures something of this burden. What draws me to the image is not simply the sorrow in the figure's face. It is the posture. The head lifts upward, as if searching for an answer that never quite arrives. The figure appears suspended between endurance and exhaustion, between hope and despair.

Years later, I find myself remembering the father in Green Park in a similar way. Not because they looked alike, but because both seemed to carry a burden that could not be seen directly. The painting gives form to something difficult to describe: the weight of responsibility when circumstances have become larger than oneself.

Looking at the painting, I am reminded that anguish is often invisible. We notice the outward circumstance but miss the inward weight. We see the request but not the courage required to make it. We see the struggle but not the love that sustains it.

Perhaps this is why Father's Day matters.
Not because fathers are perfect. Not because every story is happy. Not because every family is untouched by hardship.

It matters because fatherhood, at its best, represents a willingness to carry responsibility beyond oneself. It is an act of service. A daily decision to place the wellbeing of others before one's own comfort.

Perhaps Father's Day should encourage us to widen our understanding of what fatherhood looks like.

We celebrate successful fathers. We celebrate wealthy fathers. We celebrate famous fathers. We celebrate fathers whose achievements are visible to the world.

But there are other fathers whose names never appear in newspapers and whose efforts receive little recognition.

The father working the night shift. The father rebuilding after losing a home, a business, or a future he once imagined. The father carrying illness or grief while trying to stay strong. The father displaced by conflict.

These fathers rarely receive awards. Their sacrifices are seldom recorded. Yet they embody a form of perseverance that deserves recognition.

Their heroism is rarely dramatic.
It is daily.

It is found in showing up when circumstances are difficult. It is found in refusing to abandon responsibility when life becomes overwhelming. It is found in the decision to continue carrying burdens that no one else fully understands.

Perhaps these are the fathers we should remember too.

There is also a theological dimension to fatherhood that is often overlooked. Many religious traditions portray love not as domination or control, but as self-giving. The measure of love is found not in what it acquires, but in what it is willing to surrender for the sake of another.

Perhaps this is why stories of fathers occupy such a profound place in our moral imagination. At their best, fathers remind us that responsibility is not a burden imposed from without but a commitment freely embraced. To love another person deeply is to accept that their wellbeing becomes bound to our own. Their hunger concerns us. Their fears concern us. Their future concerns us.

Across religious traditions, fatherhood often becomes a symbol of responsibility, care, guidance, and sacrifice. In Christianity, God is frequently described as Father. In Islam, while God is not called Father, divine compassion, mercy, and care for humanity are central attributes. In Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and many Indigenous traditions, the responsibility to protect, nurture, and guide future generations is woven into both spiritual and communal life.

The language and imagery differ, yet a common thread remains. Love is measured not merely by affection, but by responsibility. It is revealed in the willingness to bear burdens for the sake of another. It remains present. It endures. It continues even when circumstances become difficult.

In this sense, fatherhood becomes a quiet form of sacrifice. Not the dramatic sacrifice celebrated in monuments or history books, but the daily offering of time, strength, pride, comfort, and sometimes even dignity. It is the willingness to carry a weight so that others do not have to carry it alone.

This was what I glimpsed in Green Park Station. Not perfection. Not success. Not failure. Simply a father bearing a responsibility that had become larger than himself.

And in that moment, I was reminded that some of the most profound expressions of love are found not in power, but in perseverance.

On Father's Day, we celebrate the fathers who provide, protect, guide, and support. Yet perhaps we should also remember those whose love is revealed not through abundance, but through perseverance. The fathers who keep going when circumstances become difficult. The fathers who continue carrying burdens no one else can see. The fathers who, despite everything, still stand beside their families and try again tomorrow.

I cannot remember exactly what he was wearing.
I cannot remember the sound of the trains that day.
I cannot even remember his name.

What I remember is a father standing beside his family in a crowded station, carrying a burden invisible to everyone except those who depended upon him.

Years later, that is still the image that returns to me. Not a man asking for help.
A father refusing to abandon those he loved.