Father's day post: remembering my dad

Father’s day is bittersweet for me.  My father died when I was three years old and every father’s day inevitably shines a little light in the hole in my heart.  Losing a parent is hard no matter how old you are when it happens.  It’s not easier or harder for anyone, the scars just look different.  I’ve written about this before so I won’t repeat myself here. 

I will, however tell you something about my dad. 

When he was a kid he they didn’t have money for frivolous things like books so he would steal books and kick them home so that he could claim to have found them.

Once, when he was in elementary school, my Nana noticed that he was coming home hungry every day.  When she asked him why he was so hungry he told her about a kid at school who never had a lunch.  My father had been splitting his sandwich with this kid every day and that was why he was coming home hungry.  Nana’s response was to start packing two sandwiches for him each day.

Between dropping out of high school and going to University Daddy went on his own Kerouac-esque road trip down to Mexico, and spent some time working with a buddy on the freight trains.  There’s a story from that time involving a fire and my dad naked but for his boots, but I can’t remember the details.

Daddy’s explanation of Easter went something like this: “You know who Jesus was right? Well he was crucified and they but his body in this cave and then he came out……but then he saw his shadow so he went back in again.”

I’ve spent my life gathering these kinds of stories from my mother, my Nana and anyone else who could remember.  So I feel like I have a sense of him, but I know that the image I have is not him.  It is, at best, a rose coloured collage of his best traits.  And as much as I hold onto these stories like so much found gold, they can’t give me what I really want, the experience of having a father.

When I was eight my mom married my step-father.  Ed and I have a very close and sometimes fraught relationship.  He is a friend, a confidante and a role model but he very wisely chose not to take the role of father (to have done so would have created untold conflict in our home).  So while I am infinitely grateful to have him in my life, I still don’t know what it feels like to have a dad.

Now, though, I have a chance to learn something about the father-daughter relationship.  Watching Howard with Mae is a beautiful thing.  The way he jumps right into her imaginary games – being the princess, the dragon or the bad guy – without blinking an eye makes me smile every time.  These little glimpses into fatherhood help to fill in that hole in my heart, at least a little bit, and for that I am so grateful.

I am also grateful for all the ways in which he makes it easier for me to be a mom.  He has always jumped right into parenting and done whatever he can to be an equal partner.  He gets up with her in the morning and puts her down at night.  From the moment he gets home he goes “on duty” and I can take a step back.  Every Saturday and Sunday morning he takes her out so that I can have some time to myself.  Most importantly, he has never made me feel judged as a mother, he has never made me feel guilty about the parenting choices I make, and he has always been the gold standard of support and partnership as a partner and a co-parent.

So I guess this is my way of saying happy Father’s Day Howard, I couldn’t do this without you.

Now that's one good lookin' dad