To all Dads. You are much more valuable than you realize. Happy Father’s Day to each of you.
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Posts Tagged Father’s Day
Father’s Day has a way of bursting through any barriers around my heart and releasing my feelings to splash all over the page before me. A gift of a tear or two to cleanse the soul–or at least, my soul….
There are a million things we never had the chance to do together.
Piggyback rides. Pillow fights. Accidentally sledding into a tree. Saturday morning hair muffed by pajama-clad laziness. Wobbly first bike rides. Motivational lectures in 6 week increments to inspire me to get better grades. Outrunning the lightning bug brigade at dusk. Walking on the beach hand in hand, reflecting on years of quirky nothingness. Unreasonable teen-aged dress codes. Arguments that ended with a slammed door and echoes of “You just don’t understand me.” Spastic first car rides with me as the driver, complete with minor trash-can crash endings. My baptism. Spontaneous father-daughter dances to the music in our heads. And the most treasured walk together down the aisle as he escorts me to the threshold of adulthood.
So many unfulfilled moments, but it was not his fault. You see, Daddy was the victim of a traffic fatality back in 1967 when I was just six-months-old. It was never his choice to be absent, but he was gone just the same.
As required by its very existence, life moved on for our small family of three; my mother, my sister and me. Mommy was the center of our universe, a role not easily fulfilled, but she mastered it beautifully. She placed our needs before her own on a daily basis; her soft but practical approach to life gently masking her inner strength.
Still, my father was my hero; or at least, my fairy-tale version of him was. With no memories to call my own, I could create him into whomever I wanted for that particular day. He was as big, strong, protective, understanding and gentle as I needed for him to be. If he had been here, I was certain he could do no wrong. He was my knight in shining armor.
So, I was stunned when someone once asked me, “Have you forgiven your father for being gone?”
Excuse me?
To forgive him would require me to admit anger for his absence, and as a child, I could never have done that. As a grown-up, after years of watching other people’s daddies, however, I began to understand it. As a matter of fact, I now consider myself an expert on this subject of fathers.
No matter the setting, I was quick to notice any father in my vicinity as he swept his teeter-tottering child off his feet. Some daddies were tough, intimidating until the giggle of an adoring son awakened the twinkle in their eyes. Others were expressionless at first, battling the screaming deadlines of the corporate world, but as soon as they were challenged to a race across the playground, their faces melted with escaping joy.
But soon, I noticed the broken fathers as well. Fathers without children. Children without fathers. Barely existing in worlds far apart from each other.
For someone who would travel across the world, if necessary, if my Daddy was out there somewhere, I wondered how this could be.
But I get it now; few fairy-tale fathers exist. Sometimes dads mess up. Sometimes they walk away, convinced that their kids are better off without them. Sometimes their kids are taken from their lives and they never get the chance to seek forgiveness. Years pass with no contact because both the father and the child feel unwanted.
Relationships are complicated, and I never had to walk in the footsteps of anyone who has been hurt by their own father. Still, if I could line up all the broken fathers across from all their broken children, regardless of their age, this is what I would say to the them:
Life is harder than expected. The past hurts, but the future does not have to; at least, not as much. Get mad. Tell your Dad he let you down, just when you needed him most. Tell him you needed him to protect you, and that you want to trust him. Tell him he is difficult to talk to, and you just need for him to listen. Do whatever it takes to make tomorrow better.
And Dads, God chose you to be a father, and He will show you how to do it if you let Him. Your presence means much more than your perfection. Forgive yourself, so that your kids can do the same. You need each other. You always have. You always will. Treasure your moments, for they are truly priceless.
I guess the little girl in me still longs for a happy ending for everyone’s fairy tale.
If only I could stand across from my own father, and say these simple words:
Just hold me, and never let go.
Yes. That is exactly what I will tell him one day, when we meet face to face.
Daddy, what if?
Jun 16
My writing career, if you can call it that, started with my first published piece on Father’s Day in 1990. It was published in the Sunday Edition of The Tennessean, in a small column called “The Nashville Eye.” The title they chose? “She Still Dreams of Life With Dad.”
How appropriate that here I am, eighteen years later, sitting at my computer as Father’s Day approaches, still dreaming.
For those who know me, and even those who don’t, it is important to understand that by doing this, I am exposing my feelings in their purest form. Sometimes embarrassment follows, as if I’ve said too much. But still, the writing process cleanses my soul in some way.
And on Father’s Day, I just don’t have a choice.
You see, my father, who was a preacher down in Corinth, Mississippi back in November of 1967, was fatally injured in a car accident. I was only six months old at the time, and my older sister, Jeanna, was barely three-years-old.
So, forgive me if the cleansing of my soul also means that tears roll down your face as well. Maybe I do say too much, but then again, maybe God gave us all stories so that they could be shared.
Dear Daddy,
I spent the weekend listening to Father’s Day tributes all over the radio. A million songs filled with memories that I don’t have, and it still hurts me to this day.
I’ve always said that the hardest part about you dying was not that you left, but that you never came back. I would have given anything to spend a day with you, even if it was our little secret. I so needed a memory to call my own.
So, now it’s been 41 years worth of times that we needed you, and every day, you are still gone. I’ve learned that the world tends to move on quickly from these things, but for those of us left behind, you still aren’t here and that never changes.
Sure, we move on. We live. We heal. But we are never the same.
Somewhere along the way, I wondered why I couldn’t get over you. Was something wrong with me? How can I miss something that I never had? How could a man in a picture mean so much to me?
I tried to recreate a memory - to stand where you once stood and learn everything I could about you. I would imagine your voice and try to touch anything you may have touched. I assumed that if you were here, any problem I ever had could have been resolved with a hug. I never imagined any rough times in our relationship, but since you were a fairy tale, I could make you anything I wanted to, right?
But that’s just the problem. It was like I was describing a fictional character, and the only way you existed was in my mind. That’s just not the same thing as a memory.
But, it finally dawned on me this weekend, as all those “Daddy” songs kept reminding me of the things we never got to do together, that it’s not the lack of memories that bothered me so much.
It’s the love that is supposed to go with those memories.
Daddy, I don’t want to hurt you by saying this, but I don’t remember feeling loved by you. It’s like it was something else I imagined; just another dream.
Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s not your fault. And in my mind, I know you loved me, and still do. But in my heart, the only thing it remembers about you is that you weren’t here. Maybe that’s why I can’t get over you.
Did you know that every day was hard for Mom? Though she rarely showed it, somehow, she was able to constantly prove she was strong enough to handle it. She did a great job of raising us, always placing our needs before her own. But deep down inside, I don’t think any of us really want to do this all by ourselves.
Did you know that when I was little, and was trying to figure out this thing they casually call “death,” I used God as a messenger to get to you? I would pray to him every night, but in the beginning, it was only because he knew you.
Did you know that for as long as I can remember, my number one goal was to get to heaven? Again, that was more about you at the time than it was my love for God or Jesus. But if that’s where I had to go to meet you, then that’s where I was going.
Did you know that when Jeanna had her bike accident when she was 9, and I saw her lying in the street unconscious and bleeding, that I kept yelling at everyone and telling them not to let her die? I truly didn’t want her to die, but I also thought that if one of us was going to get to be with you, I wanted that person to be me.
Kind of a twisted way of thinking for a 6-year-old, I guess, isn’t it?
My motivation may have been selfish in the beginning, but what developed through the years, though, was this very personal relationship between me and God. I remember hearing the scripture that said “God is Father to the Fatherless,”(Psalm 68:5) and we had a deal from that day forward. I was asking the hard questions from the start, and he was OK with that.
When I prayed, I would say, “My Fathers, who art in heaven. . . ” and he was OK with that.
I told him everything about how I wished he had handled our lives differently, that we needed you here, and that I didn’t think it was fair. And he was OK with that.
And somehow, as Daddies do, he comforted me.
In my own little girl logic, I ended up feeling sorry for those who hadn’t gone through it yet. And sometimes, I felt that I had the advantage, because I had two “Fathers in Heaven” watching over me, and everyone else had just one.
They say that our Dad’s are here to show us the love of God, our Heavenly Father, right? Well, you’ve done that better than any of them, I suppose.
The truth is that I don’t ever really want to get over you. To this day, everything that is wrong with me – and everything that is right with me - it all started with you. It makes me who I am today, and I don’t want to let go of that.
Because of you, I see what is most important in life, and can spend my time and energy on the things that matter most. Because of you, I treat each day as if it could be my last, so that there are never any regrets. Because of you, I make sure that my family will always remember what it was like to feel loved.
Still, what I wouldn’t do for a big hug and the chance to cry out all this strength I’ve held on to for all of these years. Sometimes, I get tired of being strong. I just want you to be here doing all the Father and Grandfather things you are supposed to be doing. I want my kids to know you, and to make jokes about how you are losing your hair or something. I want you to be planning some sort of retirement cruise with Mom. I want to see you grilling out in shorts and black socks so we can tell you how embarrassing that is. . .
There I go dreaming again.
I guess one day, when I can be more spiritual and less human, I’ll trade in all these earthly dreams for those about heaven. I have no idea what you’ll look like up there, but you had better have big arms, because I can’t wait to run into them.
Until then, Happy Father’s Day.
Published in the Nashville Eye column of The Tennessean, Father’s Day, 1990.
My reaction to Father’s Day has changed over the years.
When I was little, I ignored it completely. As I grew older, it became a sad time for me. Today, I have come to appreciate this holiday, maybe even more than the others.
You see, my Daddy died when I was a baby. I never knew him, but I had his picture and my own fairy-tale view of what he must have been like. I constantly watched other daddies and dreamed about my own. Sometimes, I still do.
It took me awhile to figure it all out. I guess I was three years old when I asked the inevitable question, “My best friend has a daddy; why don’t I?”
My Mommy explained that Daddy was killed in a car wreck and had gone to be with God in heaven. She said he would always love me and be watching over me, even though he couldn’t be here. It didn’t make much sense to me.
I asked my sister, Jeanna, about it and she said it was true. She was six years old and knew everything. She said she remembered Daddy. Everyone seemed to remember him except for me.
It seemed that the more I learned about my father’s death, the less I understood it. I wanted a lap to sit in and a neck to hug. I wanted to be tickled and chased and to ride piggy-back. I wanted my Daddy to come back. And I believed with all my heart that he would.
It was my seventh birthday- this was the day he was going to come see me. I knew he wouldn’t be able to stay long because he would have to get back to heaven. All I wanted was to spend a few minutes with him so that I could remember him too.
I wore my favorite blue dress to school that day because I knew he would like it. I saved part of my lunch for him because I thought he might be hungry from his trip. I knew he would be able to recognize me because he had been watching over me all those years. I wondered if he would look the same as in the pictures.
I wondered, and waited.
May 7, 1974 – on that day I learned the meaning of the word “forever.” Finally, I had come to terms with my father’s death.
Perhaps this might explain my misconceptions about Father’s Day. My first memory of a Father’s Day was being in church and the preacher loudly saying “Happy Father’s Day!” I quickly decided that since I didn’t have a “happy father,” I didn’t have to listen to that sermon. I slept through church that Sunday.
As my sister and I became teenagers, we recognized the holiday by buying our mother a Father’s Day present. She played both roles in our family and deserved the show of kindness.
Now that I’m grown and have kids of my own, I look forward to father’s Day. It’s a big production at our house. The kids march around with sigsns that say “Daddy is great!” they have buttons that say “I love Dad” on them. I want them to understand how important their daddy is; I what their daddy to understand it as well.
Maybe I still have a fairy-tale view of things, but in my opinion, it is quite simple: It’s the little things that a father can do that are most important. Spend time with your kids, whether it’s playing ball or doing yard work or reading to them. Listen to them. Let them know you are on their side. Make them laugh often, and hold them when they cry.
Regardless of their age, your children need to know you care.
Trust me, it matters. And Happy Father’s Day!
