Fourteen Fathers’ Days

Another Father’s Day come and gone… like the turn of the earth and the tide of the sea, they just keep coming, indifferent to the memories they stir.

Fourteen years ago, I spent Father’s Day with my dad, happy to be the bright-eyed 8-year-old daddy’s girl that I was. And then I never did again. Thirteen years ago, I spent Father’s Day in tears, reconciling the new facts of my life with each holiday that was iterated anew in his absence. Ten years ago, the holiday drudged up with it relatively little emotion. I took this to mean that I was healed. But of course, loss is a whirlwind and healing comes in waves. So nine years and 360 days ago, I collapsed on my floor in pained guilt, concerned that I was no longer honoring as I should the man who had given me life. Six years ago, I realized that I had lived equal parts of my life with and without a father – not a balance I ever really desired, but a milestone I felt strong conquering. Five years ago, I celebrated the presence of a new participant in the holiday.

Needless to say, I have a loaded history with the day; however, I think as time has passed and with it a million emotions and uncountable growth, I have discovered that loaded though it may be, it need not be so volatile. In this realization, I have found a reconciled stability. In this reconciliation, I have found comfort. And in this comfort, I have found fathers all around.

Though in truth, I didn’t really find them at all. They were always there; I suppose it just took me some time to fit all their puzzle pieces together.

The edge pieces, those essential borders, could only have been formed by grandfathers and great-grandfathers who, in the ever-unexplainable patterns of the world, outlived their son/grandson-in-law. Thank you for being role models and protectors and helping hands. You have guided the way.

To the man I always loved and respected, but took some time to realize just how much, thank you for doing more than you were ever required to do. Thank you for opening your home and loving me as your own. For being a surrogate father. You filled in the gaps of the picture, those hazy places I was never sure how to complete. And to my dear friend and his daughter, thank you for sharing.

The background scenery… at first, it might seem unnecessary. But how wrong that would be. For though it may not be the focal point, it in fact takes up the bulk of the picture. All the minor pieces that combine to make the whole so much more beautiful. So to my step-father, I didn’t know I needed you until you turned the puzzle into something so much more than I thought it could be.

Perhaps most importantly, I had to fit in the cornerstones. Who would be those perfect pieces to seek from the beginning? Looking back it seems to me that I kept trying to cut corners into abstract pieces never meant to fill that role. And how silly… for those bases, my true rocks, were always right in front of me. My infinitely strong mother and my understated but extraordinary brother, you have made me who I am and showed me what I wanted to be.

And of course in the center, my own father. The memories I carry, the dreams that I have, the smile I can’t forget. Perhaps you couldn’t be here long, but you always were and will always be the original image, the picture I’m working to create.

I know I am not alone in struggling with or otherwise conceptualizing this day. There are countless others who have been dealt a loss like mine. There are others with fathers who, rather than being ripped away, left of their own accord. Those with abusive fathers. Those for whom the very word father may be foreign. It is with all of these that I often feel an unspoken connection of solidarity and love. And it is for all of these that I hope some form of paternal love may always be found in hidden places and unexpected arms.