Yesterday was official “Father’s Day” on the American calendar. Only, most of my family was out of town so we postponed to tonight to celebrate padre.
I’m not about to wax poetic because it’s not who we are, man.
Side story: I volunteer at a youth group. Most of the kids I work with are around fourteen years old. One night they started talking about their parents and one young man was frustrated because it’s HIS job to mow the lawn and he thinks, because it’s his job, it should also be his decision as to how low the blade was positioned on the mower. Only his father disagreed and insisted that the blade be positioned higher for a higher grass-blade.
(Makes you wish you had middle-school problems, huh?)
But the situation made me think about when I was in middle school and complaining about my parents; my (AWESOME) literature teacher said, “You want to know a secret? Your parents are probably wrong.”
And then we all stared at him.
He continued, “They’re just doing their best but they’re guessing on some things and just wrong about others.”
That point is when I began to grow up, I think. It’s because I realized that “grown-ups” weren’t REQUIRED to have their acts together. Grown-ups aren’t failures if their life-decisions aren’t shrouded in soft lighting and Hallmark music playing in the background.
So, I’ll be real: my dad isn’t perfect. Childhood wasn’t perfect but, whatever, he did his best.
My parents made millions of sacrifices for us, were generous, and did their best.
Yeah, they screwed up sometimes, too…but, don’t we all?
That’s my Father’s Day message.
Maybe, when you think about your dad, you’re disappointed that you don’t get the tear-jerking, sun-setting-in-the-background, soft-piano commercial but rather a raw picture of wounded people screwing up and doing their best.
Whatever, man.
Happy Father’s Day to all fathers…especially if you’re screwing up but still just doing your best.
Tonight (if the Lord wills it and I don’t get mono and die because my throat was scrathcy this morning and that’s AUTOMATICALLY where my mind jumped) we’ll all go to a baseball game on my dad’s dollar and be screwed-up family together.
I look forward to it.
We just keep striving for heaven, you know?
As a side note: Father Pio Maria called me this weekend. To tell me that he loves me.
The end.
Idk, but my Dad and both of my Grandpas are some of the strongest and near-perfect examples of true fatherhood and masculinity in my life, so I don’t really agree with these sentiments. Without any of them I wouldn’t know how to ride a bike, drive a car, to laugh at myself, have a sense of humor, make a pie, re-do a kitchen, draw and make art, tend a garden, pray the rosary, and many other things. No one is perfect but the lessons and knowledge they impart to us is perfect to me.
Totally. You’re lucky/ blessed/ fortunate to have those kind of male influences in your life. I have other friends, though, whose fathers have walked out on their family, started seeing other women, etc. etc. etc. There is a full spectrum of “fatherhood,” from the very good to the very bad. I just happen to fall where I fall…which is where I write from.