Over the years in my life there have been a number of men who have served as examples of fatherhood for me – unfortunately despite whatever desires I have had my own father has never been among those men within the range of my memory. As Father’s Day approached this year I thought about how disappointing that was for me to realize that Father’s Day is a completely lopsided holiday for me – it is an excuse for my wife and kids to tell me I’m great (or not – young kids aren’t always reliable about acting as the label on the calendar might indicate) but I have no inclination to try digging out my Dad’s phone number to call him up and say “Thanks for . . . something; I just can’t think what exactly it was.”
Today started out bittersweet. Bitter for the reasons cited above, and sweet to hear my kids in the other room as I woke up singing Happy Birthday to their sister who has her birthday today as well. That indicated to me that we’re doing pretty good as a family. As I think on that and the fact that all my brothers seem to be doing pretty good as fathers in their own families I have hope for the future that my grandchildren and their generation of cousins etc. might be unaware that the chain of honorable fatherhood was ever broken in their ancestry.