Happy Father's Day.
This picture is not my father at his best dressed (he looked quite sharp in a suit) but it's my favorite picture. It reminds me of where I got my quirks and sense of humor.
Father's Day tends to be hard for me. It's not just because I am thinking of my father, who passed away years ago. It is also because I think about all the things I could have done better as a dad myself.
Mistakes made that can't be unmade.
Moments missed that don't come around again.
Seeing my children facing their own challenges and being powerless at times to do more than offer comfort.
I also think of the wonderful things about being a dad: the joys and celebrations of fatherhood; the pride when my children accomplished things I could not. (Call me old school, but the fact that both of my kids have college degrees makes me so proud of them. I couldn't pull it off. They did.)
Fatherhood is a journey along roads high and low, through darkness and light, with clear days and storms. It is not a journey for the fainthearted.
There comes a point on every Father's Day where my thoughts go back to my own father. We had a complicated relationship. When I entered my teen years that relationship hit a wall that stood between us for more than a decade. Nothing that was important to either of us mattered one bit to the other. That wall separating us was thick and unmovable. Impervious. An obstacle that simply could not be overcome. It sprang up seemingly overnight at almost the precise moment I discovered rock music in the 1960's. It was a seismic moment Dad never understood. Music was everything for me. It changed me. Neither of us handled that change very well.
As a young boy, you see, I loved my father so much that I never saw his faults. Then came the wall, and the years when his faults were all that I saw. Then I became a man myself, and a father as well. And I understood.
I am thankful that I realized in time that a wall is just bricks, and all I had to do was tear it down, one brick at a time.
Happy Father's day, again.
Be good to each other...
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My motto is be good to each other. In that spirit, keep it clean on the comments. Personal attacks, nasty language, and any disdain of chicken wings will not be tolerated.