I am happy this father's day. I am doing my best to give the dad of this house a break, some special treatment, provide him with his favorite foods and some little gifts. I have been getting up early with the baby, and so on...
None of that really matters though, I don't think.
Either you feel loved and appreciated as a parent, or you don't. Some special attention one day of the year can't make you feel any more loved. So, I hope on this Father's day that the father here, my fabulous partner in life, is only reminded of the love we always show, and only feels even more satisfied and content with his life.
I have been trying my best to get Adam to start a blog of his own, and I may have finally convinced him. Or, if it wasn't me, it was a magazine article he read about using blogs to get the word out about your work. He has a lot of good projects going and really could make a pretty big impact on the world. I believe in him and what he does. I know he is destined for big things in life.
He also may be persuaded a bit due to the new blog that a friend of his from the Human Rights Education Associates has started. Felisa Tibbits, the executive director and founder of HREA is in Darfur right now and blogging about it here. Very interesting read; I highly encourage you all to check it out.
I bet in some ways Adam would trade in his home made chocolate cake in a second to be in her shoes right now, but we are glad to have him here on Father's Day. Maybe someday Adam will get the chance to do what he feels most passionate about.
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Other Father's Day thoughts:
Father's Day is a trying time for a little boy with two dads, one close by and one far away. When you throw in a bad situation with a grandpa is gets more confusing.
I called my dad today.
He seemed okay and has found a new job at a grocery store.
Adam's dad is on my mind as well. He was buried two years ago on Father's day, and I think he is only missed more as time passes. I am so grateful for his life and his gifts each day.
So, fathers day is happy and wonderful around here, but I know for so many of us, fathers day is just another day to make us feel sad and confused.
I'll stop with a poem Adam shared during today's church service:
Those Winter Sundays
by Robert Hayden
by Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
1 comment:
I'm not sure what your father has been through in the past decade, but he had a big - and positive - impact on me as a teenager. He was singlehandedly responsible for introducing me to the Grateful Dead, and through them, jazz. That music has since become a bedrock of my life.
On a different note, he taught me that it was cool to be positive, but questioning of authority. This is, I think, a critical lesson to learn if you're going to be a productive member of society.
Next time you speak with him, please pass along my best wishes. And let him know that he helped someone grow in ways that he might not have been aware.
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