I didn’t write this on Father’s day because I was actually with my Dad. Enjoying all his varied nuances—his personality and penchant for storytelling when he’s had a couple.
It was marvelous. I ate steak that he seasoned and cooked. Delish. I truly can’t enjoy time with my Dad enough. My dad is 60 years old. However, in my eyes he’ll always be 35 sneaking me on to roller coasters in his coat and taking me to circle K for salt & vinegar potato chips after school.
What’s sinking in is that my Dad isn’t 35 any more. He swears a roller coaster would set on a heart attack, he’s survived a stroke and I’ve noticed sometimes he has these…senior moments. All in all, my Dad’s also single ( this isn’t a solicitation, I’ve really had enough of you women) and twice divorced. I want to know he’s taken care of whether that’s a wife or a whatever. I’ll be blessed to have another 35 years with my Dad and what I want for him is to know he is loved, especially by his children. As long as he’s a guy on the dolo, it’s my responsibility to make sure he’s ok.
My prayer partner and I often pray for our roles as adult children. How to maneuver feeling responsible for your parents. Their safety, security, well being? I feel it more every day, especially as I have no children of my own.
I felt on Father’s day, for the first time, desire to have children (boy children/ *winkwink) that my father would know. I feel the corruption process of having Lonnie as a Granddad couldn’t be so profound that it would not prove beneficial to said child in their later years.
On the radio in Atlanta I heard someone say Barack Obama had no ties to slavery and that removed him a step from the Black American struggle. #truthbomb His father-an African man from Kenya, doesn’t have any ancestral ties to slavery. Yet, the absence of his Father, the mystique of this man fueled him in ways he didn’t realize growing up. Our fathers, for there rights, wrongs, shortcomings, presences and absences, they are 50% who we are.
My Dad is mine. For all of the friends I have who don’t know who their dad is, where their dad is or if they do have no desire to be bothered. I am thankful. That I know this man, love this man and have in meaningfully in my life. Not as a statistic, not as absentee, but as a full and real person.
As a kid I felt the loss of my Dad in my life when my parents separated. From my perspective my Dad had abandoned me. Now I understand there were a lot more ego and politics at play and that scenario than I’ll ever be able to comprehend. But as I matured, I realized this is the only Father I’ll ever have. The one I was intended to have and I will know him. I will know who I am in him by embracing who he is. Enjoying more days filled with the gift of his presence , his lessons and his love.
Father’s Day 2012
