My son Ryan and I lock eyes all the time. I’d love to report that my eyes and expression are always brimming with love. They’re not. I can report, however, that many times they send a reassuring message. They tell my son that his dad is present, watching and waiting to encourage him.

Just ask him. He’ll tell you about all the nonverbal ways that we communicate. Sometimes the “connect” is just with the eyes and a nod of my head which says to him, I see you, I love you, and you know what to do. No words. Sometimes our eyes will lock when he’s on the soccer field and I will simply hand signal to him: I–love–you in our unofficial father-son sign language. Again, not a word is spoken.

Other times the sense of touch is the vehicle of communication. From the time he was little, three intermittent squeezes of a hand or leg or arm communicated how we felt for each other—one squeeze for each word: squeeze one "I," squeeze two "love," squeeze three "you." His response back would be the same and then he would hold up two fingers to complete his nonverbal communication, I love you too, Dad.

This theme of “three” extends all the way back to when we’d pray by his bedside. The real “amen” is a special sort of “man-kiss” we have developed: three rapid kisses on the cheek followed by three sniffs on the cheek—a Guamanian form of a kiss.

Last stop are the surprise back rubs. The kid has the best hands in the family. Again, he’s talking to me but not saying a word. He’ll just see me, come over, and I’ll feel these great strong hands grabbing handfuls of shoulder muscle. He doesn’t say a word. I groan. He slaps me hard on my back three times to signal he’s done and disappears again. Ryan loves me.  

As for my dad, you didn’t want the “look.” In our house if you got the look then the hand or the belt was sure to follow. To this day I cannot believe how powerful the facial expressions of my father were to me. His face determined the whole atmosphere of our family and, sadly, there were not many, if any, smiles on my dad’s face while I was growing up. The colors of his face were two: red for when he was drunk, angry or exhausted and pale for when he was sober, calm and rested. I used to read his face to get a sense of his mood so I could try to determine what might happen next or how to avoid what might happen next.

The end of the story with my dad is bright. He began a new spiritual journey at 65 and finished strong in his relationships with God and his family. I never saw his face turn red after that. Even though I was married with three kids, I was so glad to walk with my dad as a son during this time. The reciprocity between us was rich as a father and son from his spiritual renewal to heart bypass to congestive heart failure to his burial, where I broke down and sobbed. 

Until you’re a father, you cannot know the profound sense of joy that penetrates your soul as you lock eyes with your son. For a man and his daughter it is a more protective instinct as one commissioned to guard a rare and priceless diamond. For a man and his son it is a more potent generational instinct of passing on one’s legacy and of seeing oneself in the other person.

I cannot explain the feeling that makes me want to be noble and to translate and transmit that sense of honor into Ryan’s life.   It haunts me to think of those invisible demons of character that have the potential to limit me from being the man I so desperately want Ryan to become. But when we lock eyes, I find renewed power to fight those demons so that I can prevail for him.

Kenny Luck is the men’s pastor at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., and the founder and president of Every Man Ministries. which helps churches develop and grow community for men. Visit him at everymanministries.com.