I wanted to write a letter this Fathers Day for all of the dads out there. Especially to the ones who have been there, for their spouse’s and children every step of the way. I want to say thank you to those dads who came home tired from work but still drug themselves out into the backyard to teach a little girl how to hit a softball off a tee and catch it in a glove. To those dads who took their toddler son and put him in his wagon and walked him around the neighborhood-- mostly just to show him off. To the dads who sat at the kitchen table and helped a confused child make sense of their schoolwork. To the dads who laid down with their child at bed time and read to them until they went to sleep. But mostly to the dads who were just proud to be a dad and loved their kids and spouse.
I had a neighbor who lost his wife to cancer and raised two little girls by himself He was a relatively young man at the time and several years later I once asked him if he ever thought about dating again. He didn’t answer me right away but finally he said this. “My wife left me a lot of things in the brief time I had her but the thing she left me that was the most precious is these children. Maybe someday when the girls are older I can think about that, but for now, I owe it to her and the girls to not complicate their lives anymore then they have already been.” He was a good dad, and I was almost ashamed I had asked the question.
When I graduated from high school my father told me it was time to get a job or go on to school but in any case it was time to move out. I was the oldest of eight kids and they needed my bed and my spot at the table. My grandfather lived in the same town and I tearfully told grandpa that dad had bluntly told me to leave. My grandfather said, “He wouldn’t have told you that if he didn’t have faith that you would find your way in the world. He did his part and now it’s your turn. He believes in you Mike. He told me so” I remember sitting on the end of his hospital bed 40 years later, holding his hand and crying as he was dying. It was then, that I realized that the cord, I thought we had cut all of those years ago, had never really been cut. He had just given me some slack. I still needed him and even though he wasn’t physically there for me much during those forty years, he was always there in sprit and he had given me the biggest gift of all. He believed in me-- and that had made me a better man. He never achieved a lot materially in his life of hard work but yet the example he gave me and left with me was not just the man he became. It also was the man he always meant to be and by definition that is what a real father is all about. Yes, at some point he had quit telling me how to live-- but he never quit showing me how to live.
As dads we all need to be that good example to our kids that they will take with them after you are gone. Just having that on your mind each day, doesn’t just give your children someone to emulate. In effect it makes you a better person for everyone, not just your kids. To my dad and to all the dads who have gone to their just reward or are with us, I have always realized that anyone can become a father but it takes a lot of love and work to be your dad.
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