It is Father's Day and Facebook is full of photos and greetings, including my own.
My own dad died four years ago, but it seems as if it just happened. My dad lived far away from me in my adults years. They lived in Texas, and I lived in Pennsylvania and Indiana. Visits were difficult and expensive when you have young families and geography is the key.
But whenever I did visit, I was able to sit in my Dad's library with him in the red leather chair and talk about my goals. He knew I loved all the things that would never bring me money...writing, teaching, telling stories...but he understood all of that.
We shared a love of poetry from the day I could talk, I believe. When he died i was able to gather his poetry books from his library and place them in mine.
I love knowing he read the same poems as I read and memorized just as many.
My dad never changed the oil in my car, or painted my house, or even taught me how to garden...but my dad taught me to love words and poetry, and those were the gifts I needed to carry on in my own life.
Until tomorrow.
1 comment:
yes we can get sentimental on Father's day and maybe that is the point. For anyone to recognize and acknowledge a Father and say happy father's day to him is honoring a tradition out of respect. Perhaps, any other day of the year, if one encounters a Dad with child in tow, an encouraging word to the child regarding the parent would be appreciated some day. The child may say, "that lady we saw at the store said you were nice." and who knows, someday the child may respond in kind to their friend; and tell her, "you have a nice daddy too."
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