Father's Day

It's Not Fun for Everyone

I don't want to put a bummer on anyone's great Father's Day plans, so I won't post this until after. Most of the days with a big build-up are a bit of a disappointment, in my opinion, but I still don't want to ruin it. People don't like to talk about death, but it's always a necessary conversation.

We don't really know what happens when we die, I think that's what's so scary. We may have religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, but we don't really KNOW, you know? Anyway, I talk about death a lot. If you've been here a while, you know that. I'm a big fan of putting light into dark places, and shining a light often makes things less scary. I'm not talking about death today, though, per se, but about the pain of the living.

You see, I'm a Minnesotan, and in case you haven't heard, on Father's Day weekend, one of our representatives and her husband were assassinated, another lawmaker and his wife were shot. This leaves two children suddenly fatherless for Father's Day, another whose dad is in the hospital recovering, which I'm sure is traumatic. I have no desire to speak of the suspect, except to say that he also has children who are going to have a tough time about their father, through no fault of their own. I'm devastated for all of these children, as I am for my own grandchildren.

I have 5 grandchildren with dead dads myself,  it's not easy. There will be no father/daughter dances, no father walking them down the aisle on their wedding day, no father/son or father/daughter fishing trips, there's hundreds more, but you get the point.  My son loved his children very much, I'm sure on some level he still does, but it's not the same. There's a lot they do have. They have a good mom, an uncle who loves them, an auntie who dotes on them, their maternal grandpa, and me, for starters, lots of loving family and friends. Oh, one of them has a paternal grandma also that isn't me, he's my grandson from love. In addition to kids with dead dads, we have so many kids with absent dads, through no fault of their own. I myself had an absent father, I never met him. I had four step-dads, two of which were really good. My own children had an absent father.

Then there's the fathers who are abusive. The fathers who stepped away because they don't agree with your life choices and fathers we've stepped away from because they've become someone we no longer recognize.

Father's Day is hard, for a lot of us. It's easier to make our peace with it when we're not inundated with constant ads about celebrating dad's special day, when our day isn't that special.

I don't want to take away anyone's joy. You deserve all the love, enjoy your day! Just remember, theres a lot of kids, and adults with sad inner kids, who are in pain every day. Remember that families are complicated, and not everyone's looks the same. And maybe from the outside they do, and they are really good at spackling over cracks and gluing veneer over rotted places in the house that should have been a home. Father's Day, much like Mother's Day, can be a contentious subject. For the missing fathers, through their own actions or not, and for the ones who wanted to be fathers and life didn't pan out that way. An ounce of quiet acceptance, a kindness extended, is more soothing than an empty platitude. Keep us in mind, and we'll keep you in ours.

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