Father's Day is a Coming . . . So What's It To You?

Father's Day is this coming Sunday.  I want to thank all you dad's out there who do so much to make your children's lives richer. Don't let anyone or anything minimize your role as a Dad. You may well be the single most important person in your child's life. This will be true whether your children are small or grown.  They will feel your influence in their life as long as they live and long after you are gone. You may not really be a Superman but in their eyes, if you do it right, you'll always be the super man in their life.

Father's Day is significant to me on a number of levels.  When I was a kid it was just another day second to just about every other "special" day on the calendar. It certainly played second fiddle to Mother's Day.  However, as both myself and my children have grown older the day has become more important to me than when I was a child.

First, Father's Day reminds me that I am a father, albeit one whose children are grown. I often reflect back over my years of parenting wonder if I was the best dad I could have been. I have long since concluded that the answer to that is "probably not."  Oh, I think I did the best I knew how and as the number of children grew so did my "dad" skills. I really need to apologize to my oldest children. In many ways they were a part of my learning curve.  When they were born they were sent home with us and no one gave us an instruction book . . . we had to learn on the fly.  However, as I reflect on my children I can say without reservation I am very happy and proud of the adults they have become. So I may not been the best dad but I did the best I knew how and I was as a preacher friend of mine often said, "adequate."

For me Father's Day is a day of  both Thankfulness and Sadness. I am thankful for my own father. He was the most patient man I ever knew. From my earliest years I was always welcome in his work space. He never gave me many principles of life to learn. Instead, he went one better. He allowed me to watch him as he lived out his own principles.  Most if not all the commendable qualities I have I learned by just being with him as he went about the business of living life. To be sure he had his flaws but his nature and character just made the flaws seem insignificant. It's hard to believe that this Sunday he will have been gone for 29 years and yet I still learn from him.

Perhaps the reason Father's Day evokes memories of my father that are so poignant to me is that it was on June 19, 1983 that he died. I was saddened all the more because in was also Father's Day. While I took solace in the fact that he was that day spending Father's Day with his father and his Heavenly Father I still wished he was spending with me. I have wished that every year since. As I said in a previous posting . . . he was in every way my hero.

I was 36 years old, just a year older than he was when I was born, when he died.  In those 36 years he never had much in the way of material things to give me. Oh he did the best he could and often better than he should to give me what I needed but those material things were not the real gifts. He gave me something far more valuable . . . he gave me as much of himself as he could and far more than I ever realized. The older I get the more of him I see in myself. Today there is just a whole lot of him in me.  

In my 65 years I have met many men who were giants among men. Some have been men of power and others men of wealth; some men of great intellectual prowness and others with unrivaled talents; some were great benefactors while others were strong leaders . . . but I have never met a man more significant to my life that the man I call Dad.  He really did show me how to live and how to die.  I remember saying just that in my prayer at his graveside as I thanked God for this man I called "Daddy."  I said then and believe now that "in living his life he taught me how to live and in his experience of death he showed me how to die." I believed that then and I believe it now.

I don't particularly have any words of wisdom to impart about Father's Day itself nor do I have any list of principles that if followed will make you a great dad. I would just encourage every dad to not just give your children things. And don't just give them the things they want. Give them what they need . . . a Dad. Give them as much of yourself as you can. Believe me, there will come a day when both you and they will be glad you did.

So to all you Dad's out there I say . . . HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!