Fathers Day. I always feel like it falls short of my husbands expectations. To be honest, he handles our finances so if I did do some elaborate purchase he would totally see it, question it and then check to see what it is. I could always suggest going out to his favorite spot to eat, but then we are paying for it, with the money he earned. If i’m being honest, going out to eat is more of a treat for me because then I have zero dishes to do and someone else brings my kids their drink refills.
Fathers Day falls short because I don’t think I can fully articulate in any form of language either physical or verbal just how much we appreciate my husband. But also, my own father.
Before I dive too deep into this post explaining the impact my father had on me and the insecurities my husbands excellence in fatherhood brings out in me as a mother, I need to address something. Father’s Day is bitter sweet for some.
If you’ve lost your father, never had a good father figure or never even knew your father, you still have one. You have an always loving, never giving up on you, never ending, never ever abandoning you father. He is just waiting for you to open your heart to Him. I have been blessed beyond measure with several great father figures in my life, but what made them so exceptional was who they were modeling after. Not a single earthly father is any good without the example of my sweet heavenly Father leading by example. So if you ever feel like you are lost or alone, you are not. You have a father loving you more than you can imagine.
Which brings me to my father. Lynn. He is an extraordinary man. I can’t quite put into words what he means to me. Except to say, everyone of my children has a name that ends in lynn. As a kid he seemed larger than life. So when number 2 asked me a while back ”you exercise to be strong like daddy huh? So you can move the trampoline all by yourself?” (Never mind I can already do this), I laughed. I understand how she sees her dad as an impossibly strong guy because that’s how I see my dad. “woah Emmy look! Dad is holding that refrigerator up all by himself!!” My husband grinned and sort of strut back inside after the girls saw him loading up the old fridge to take to the dump, I smiled because he just solidified in their minds that he is the strongest man in the world.
It’s not just physical strength that sticks out in my mind about my Dad, he is a very resilient man. Like the time our van broke down on family vacation. It was hotter than blue blazes outside, we had already checked out of the hotel, and did not have the money to spend on another night just for the purpose of sitting in air conditioning while Dad fixed the van. That’s the thing, it was never any doubt that dad would indeed fix the van. He walked a good ways up the road to the auto parts store, to get the stuff to fix the van, then walked the way back and fixed the van right there in the parking lot. At the time I did not see this as anything other than dad doing what dads do. Now, as an adult I smile because he may have been flustered but I would’ve never known.
Or when his heart decided to stop working while he was also battling cancer. Dad just took it in stride and kept on keeping on. I don’t know many people that could do that. He joked about how with a pace maker on one side of his chest and a chemo port on the other he looked like a robot. I never once heard him doubting the plan God had for him. My dad taught me what faith looks like, he showed me what walking in the light means.
I spent many Saturday mornings at Jesus Said Ministry cooking breakfast for the homeless and afternoons going to bakery outlets to get the supplies for Sunday mornings continental breakfast Dad cooked every Sunday. At the time I didn’t realize the impact that would have on my adult life. For my dad, you serve when you can serve, however you can serve. It’s just what you do. So when friends need help moving, need a sitter, a meal, a ladder, a whatever, you just do it. You show up and you do it. But the other thing my dad lived and taught because of it, was doing it joyfully.
Lynn is this almost fictional being in my mind. He is a super hero. I once called him, eight hours from home, driving back from college, stuck in traffic. Being the human GPS that he is, he asked a few questions then rattled off to me how interstate systems and number naming works, he rerouted me out of the traffic and was up smiling when I walked through the door. Just last month, I called him stuck in traffic on the border of Ohio and Indiana, he asked the mile marker I was at, told me which exit to get off of and how to reroute out of the traffic then just talked for a while before we got off the phone. He used to drive trucks, and has a keen sense of direction on the road but also somehow knows every road on the US map. I’m convinced I will never not need my dad. I’ve never met someone else with the uncanny ability to divert and direct you out of traffic from hundreds of miles away.
Which reminds me, now I am not saying this is what made me want to marry my husband but it certainly got me thinking that he may one day be able to save me from my directionally challenged navigation perils I am sure to stumble upon. Once in college, his nephew (long story, but his closest sibling in age is about 14 years older than him, so his nephews and nieces are some times his age) called him in the middle of the night, out running in a corn field like a cat on a hot tin roof asking for directions so he could high tail it out of the police officers grasp. Apparently drinking in cornfields underage is a thing out in the country. At any rate, my husband, then boyfriend, laughed and calmly directed Dillion out of the cornfield and back home. I sat there thinking, I might maybe coulda just found me a GPS man like my daddy.
The best marriage advice I have ever been given was in passing in a conversation with my dad. I hope he reads this, he has no idea the impact his words had on me. This conversation took place the month number 4 was born. The thing about marriage advice is it often comes in unexpected ways, years after your wedding, when you arguably need it most. Anyway, my grandmother needed her second covid shot but didn’t have a ride. The place she was scheduled to get it was an hour from her house, which was I don’t know ten hours or so from my house. My parents had just left her house to come to mine for the birth of number 4. No one in the family could get down to grandmas in time to take her to the appointment, so my Dad said, I’ll go. And he did. He got in the car and drove back, the very same way he had just come from, to drive Grandma to her appointment and then drive back to my house. He was scheduled to travel for work within the week of him being back here.
I am going to pause right here to say something important, my dad will not see the servitude in what he did. He just won’t because he always does stuff like that, he just serves. It is who he is. And it’s important to note that the grandmother I am referring to, is my moms mother. Now, that doesn’t make a sugar lick of difference because to my dad, grandma is grandma. The point is, most people would drive forever to help their own mom out, my dad does it for his mother in law. (Which, Dee, if you’re reading this, I would drive to the ends of the earth, with all four kids in the car, no naps, no toys, no movies to help you if the need arose).
Okay back to the point, when I was talking to him about how that’s an awful lot of travel. He said something that stuck with me. He smiled and without hesitation or reservation said “it will make your mom happy and it will put her at ease”.
That is marriage. I remind myself of that often, if it will make my husband happy and put him at ease, I will do it, joyfully.
My dad has taught me a lot about life, about showing up when people need it, saying what you mean and meaning it when you say it, and loving without conditions. He also harped on us, saying I’m sorry doesn’t take the words back. I’m fairly certain truer words have never been spoken by a human being. Thats a lesson you can take with you no matter how high the creek rises y’all.
I really didn’t think I would ever find another dad like mine. I knew my husband was a keeper when I decided to keep him, but I had no idea the extraordinary father he would come to be. He is not without his faults but he walks in the door and instantly starts playing. He listens to their stories recounting the days events with animated interest. He has been a great dad since the day he first held our number 1. Mind you he was also frantically saying he needed a grandma to help him figure it out.
I was in the OR getting closed up, this was back before they let c-section mamas have skin to skin time. So there my husband and number 1 sat, skin to skin, both staring at each other, sizing one another up. Wide eyed and bushy tailed they both took in the moment, the start of a wild ride. Six years later and she would be telling me in the early morning hours “I wish Daddy didn’t have to go to work, ever” my girls love their Daddy. I understand their love for him because it’s exactly how I feel about my dad.
I came in from a run once to find my husband sprawled out on the floor having a tea party with bows in his hair, 100% invested in the conversation he was having with our 3 year old. He wasn’t working that “good dad” angle trying to get some action later on from me, he was just hanging out with his daughter.
His first day, I’m talking very first day back from deployment, he sat on the couch, half dressed up in a Pocahontas dress up outfit, pointing to artwork on the wall with a child’s play broom because the girls wanted to play “museum”. His imaginative play was complete with a British accent because obviously that’s how all museum curators talk.
He is so good at being in the moment with them, stopping what he is doing to listen, I mean genuinely listen to what they are saying (no matter how drawn out and redundant it may be) and imaginative playing with them it astounds me. I often find myself wondering if maybe I don’t play with them enough, especially when I see them light up as Dad ties the grocery store apron around his neck and starts making store announcements like “excuse me the current state guidelines are that all individuals in the store wear a mask. You there approaching my register with the baby in the grocery bag, never mind the discounted baby in a bag you need a mask before I will check you out” they all giggle and frantically search for something to cover their faces with so Dad can ring them up.
He is also, obnoxiously good at watching cartoons with them. We have always tried to limit screen time for the kids but the girls have figured out that Dad likes cartoons on Saturday mornings. So they always wake Dad up, and I always find Dad snoozing on the couch, with cartoons playing and the girls munching on cereal, number 2 cuddled in next to Dad, 3 is elbow deep in fruity pebbles and 1 with rapt attention on the TV. It’s their thing, I don’t even try to intervene. Dad cuddles are the girls absolute favorite and while it sometimes makes me jealous, I understand their love. I would never let my jealously get in the way of the relationship they have with their Dad.
He is the fun one, and I am okay with that. When Dad goes to get gas, everyone fights over who gets to go with him, but when I go? Not a single one of them wants to get in the van. I tell myself it’s the truck, but it’s Dad. He is the fun one. He is good at all the things I fear I am awful at. He does all the things I don’t have the patience to do and he does them with ease. He is part of every routine. In fact, I am about as useless as a screen door on a submarine when it comes to story time. Apparently mom is not good at bedtime stories. It must be Dad, so much so that before he has to leave for extended periods of time, he actually records videos of himself reading to them. So when they go to bed, do they climb up on mom and ask for books? Sure, but only after they’ve watched Dads videos and that’s only because they know if I also read they will be staying up a smidge later than usual.
My husband has picked up a thing or two about being a dad from his dads. When I first met his then step dad, now Papa Gale, I would’ve never guessed my husband wasn’t his own.
I’ve watched Papa Gale with his own kids and grandkids and let me tell you, it’s not any different then watching Papa Gale with my husband or our girls. Papa Gale is a lover. He has stories for days that will keep you laughing so hard you’re crying. He also has just about the biggest warmest hands I have EVER seen hold a baby. I don’t know if it’s the big warm Papa Gale hands, the always good smelling after shave he has on or the love that absolutely pours out of him, but not a single one of my girls could ever resist napping on Papa Gales chest as babies. So much so, he often got reprimanded by me saying “if you make that baby sleep all evening you’d just as well stay all night for when she wakes up at 2AM!”.
Papa Gale is the guy we called at 10 o’clock at night when we took the camper out to Cape Hatteras and couldn’t figure out the water heater. He knew exactly how to fix it, turns out it wasn’t broke at all. He has done a little bit of just about everything and he has a knowledge base that blows my mind. My mother-in-law and him together would be jeopardies all time champs i’m sure.
He has lived a life full of experiences being electrocuted to fighting over who gets to eat the squirrel brains, building decks, painting houses, working in a paper mill and a power plant. He actually met my dads best friend and basically second father to me, when he was working in the power plant! Small world y’all. He is slow to judge and quick to love. He too, serves to serve because it’s just what you do. Remember when i said, not a single earthly father is any good without the example of our Heavenly Father? Papa Gale is a kid at heart, he likes riding the ranger around their property in Indiana just as much as the kids do. Now he will pretend to have had enough to give the kids a break but we all know the truth. He makes a mean pot of coffee and has just about every method under the sun to brew coffee, ways that I didn’t even know existed! Like a percolater, which my husband and I thought was a pun on the time in which he planned to drink coffee so my husband suggested a perconow.
The one thing my husband talks about to this day and does for the girls often, is story telling. His dad used to make up stories about a little boy named Three Feathers. Apparently they were phenomenal stories, my husband insisted his Dad could’ve made a killing off the Three Feather stories he came up with. So I smile when the girls listen to my husband come up with stories that sound an awful lot like how the days events played out, but the character names aren’t our own, and the events are a touch outlandish compared to what actually happened. We don’t get to see Grandad much, but when we do the girls light up and they can’t wait to tell him all of the things. He listens, with animated interest in his eyes as they pour their little hearts out and I realize my husband is the dad he is today because of Grandad and Papa Gale.
So on this Fathers Day, I want to thank all the Dads out there, living their life with no idea just how big of an impact the small things are having on their kids.
Comentarios