"A father is a guy who has pictures in his wallet
where his money used to be."
--author unknown
I was a single parent for 2 1/2 years after my first husband died. Both of my children desperately missed him, though they were so young (David was almost 4, and Erin was only 17 months) they didn't have the ability to express their sense of loss. It showed up in other ways. I was concerned especially for David because let's face it. I'm a girl. I couldn't tell him how to be a guy.
What helped was I ended up getting married again. While no human being is perfect, my new husband Ed loved these two kids. They are his in every way the three biological sons we've had together are his children. He would do anything for them. In his flawed humanity, he wants only what's best for them and now their children.
David prepared a card for Ed a few years ago before he and his family moved to China to show his appreciation for Ed. It included a song about a stepdad. It made all of us cry.
But I want to continue NieNie's brother's comment in his post about acknowledging Father's Day. This is an issue that can seriously make me angry. My own ward (congregation) would do nothing on Father's Day, and they didn't even have the excuse that it was stake conference as NieNie's brother's ward did.
I went on a little rant during ward council, when I was over activities last year. I told the bishopric and the other ward leaders that not acknowledging fathers Father's Day minimized the impact fathers have on their children. That it was an unspoken sermon on the unimportance of fathers. It wasn't a message I thought we wanted to give anyone.
I shared with them a newspaper article I'd read some years ago where a local phone company had provided free phone calls to prisoners in the local prison on Mother's Day. Men lined up for hours for the chance to call their mothers. It was so touching the phone company offered the same opportunity on Father's Day.
Not one man lined up to place a call. Not one.
This doesn't mean that everyone who ends up in prison had an abusive or missing father. Society is full of people who overcame that kind of parenting without ending up incarcerated. Nor does it mean that good parents can't end up with children who take dangerous paths.
However, it does speak highly about how very influenctial a loving, engaged father can be in the lives of his children. In a world where so many boys and young men don't have a good role model on how to be a man--and just having big muscles or sexual or athletic prowess doesn't make you a man--we need to take every chance we get to acknowledge the ones who are good models of manhood. The bottomline is it takes more to be a father than just being a sperm donor.
I was grateful the ward council took my comments to heart and made sure fathers were acknowledged last year. I hope they do the same again this year.
So on this Father's Day, I'd like to acknowledge the great men in my life. They're great men not because they amassed lots of wealth or worldly praise, but because they were/are loving, engaged, present fathers. My deceased father David (he died 3 months ago); my Uncle Ned; my father-in-law, David; my brother David; my sweet husband Ed; my sons David, Robert, and now Paul, whose wife will have a baby in December; and my wonderful son-in-law Spencer. (I'll be you noticed the plethora of Davids in my family.)
Happy Father's Day, guys!
