...Remembering Dad on June 17, 2012...

Here it is…almost Father’s Day. Every time this special holiday rolls around for the past thirty-four years, I find myself in a bit of a funk missing my dad terribly. I am not going to write a story about my father today; nor am I writing a story about myself. This will not really even be a story; there is no beginning and no end, unless you say that I was born and later on he died. The middle is only a collection of incidents that mean something special only to me.

I wanted his company after he died. I wanted his voice in my head. I wrote because I didn’t want the conversation to end when we were finally getting to know one another on a different level. I needed to continue to think and write about him, so I could have the last word. I wanted him alive. I wanted to introduce him to people who mattered to me. I wanted him to be there to hold my children and see me graduate from college.  I wanted him to see in the face of adversity, I did succeed.

My dad was a gentle soul, mild and introspective, artistic in disposition even though he never finished the eighth grade. He was admired for his kindness and generosity. When I look back at my childhood, my dad was the quietest of mythic heroes, the kind that followed his own dreams and encouraged me, not by preaching, but by his inner sense of what was right.

He was the first man I ever saw with tears in his eyes. He wept as he mourned for the loss of his brother. His eyes welled with tears when I came home after running away, on my wedding day and the day he first saw my newborn daughter. I saw and felt his anger and disappointment when I rebelled, stayed out past my curfew, and got caught doing a few illegal things. He forgave me and loved me in spite of my own flaws.

Those well meaning but flawed human beings who love their children and yet, like my own father, have a hard time putting their feelings into words. They have a hard time inserting themselves into the private bond of mothers and daughters, and they have a hard time knowing how to deal with their daughter’s fledging sexuality. To most daughters, fathers are perhaps the most personal topic of all, you can’t escape them and yet feel you can’t quite pin them down.

This anthology is not complete, as no anthology on this powerful and universal relationship between a father and his child could be. This is not so much about who my father was, or what my father did, as about what he could make me feel.

For those of you who have fathers still here on this planet, give them a hug and tell them “Thanks.” They did their best, even when it may not have always produced the best outcome. They loved you in their own ways, even though sometimes that way was difficult to understand. They are proud of you, even if they never say or said it.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad!     

I love you and miss you…

"Doodle Bug"