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Father’s Day.  Being a father, I like the ring of that.  I like the fact that we as a nation  take the time, once a year, to celebrate both fathers and mothers since it gives us time to remember, even briefly, that these special people have given us so much—guidance, love, time, support, money, and patience.

I love being a dad, even if it is probably the hardest thing I have ever done.  My two children, now 25 and 20, are a real joy.  As different as night and day, they have each challenged me in different ways.  My son was not especially focused when he was young, and school was somewhat of an adventure, especially in elementary and middle school.  As the son of teachers, it was especially difficult for us to see him be less of the interested student than his mother and I had been when we were younger.  However, as we constantly challenged him to do better and oversaw his homework and projects and the like, he began to see that school could be interesting.  He matured into a curious young man who was guided by the logic and reasoning that was at the heart of so many family discussions and arguments.  Logic became his ally and he used it to grow into a very astute and observant student of whatever was in front of him.  He is also tenacious and can spend hours doing something until it is just the way he wants it.  That was at times maddening when he was younger, and led to a lot of frustration for him.  However, I can now see that this is one of his more admirable qualities, since it allows him not to settle but to see things through until they are “just so”.  And somewhere along the way, he turned into a warm-hearted and sentimental guy.  I thought that that quality might show itself at some point since he had such a close relationship with his mother, but it has manifested itself in spades.  He spares no expense in showering me, and his girlfriend with affection, attention, constancy, and respect, traits I hope he has seen in me, things for sure he got from his mother.

My daughter was a real daddy’s girl when she was little.  She was the apple of my eye from the moment she came into our lives off of the plane from abroad (she was adopted at nine months).  We shared many special moments, and I loved it when she wanted piggyback rides, or begged to be picked up, or wanted me to read to her, over and over, the same story.  She was an easy child, but with an iron will that you could see even at age one.  I can remember one night when she fell asleep at the table over a plate of scrambled eggs that she refused to eat.  That moment is iconic, a harbinger of what was to come.  She gravitated much more to her mother when she turned the corner into adolescence, a natural thing, but I longed for the simpler times when I was the go-to parent and not just the guy who didn’t understand.  Unfortunately for her, my wife’s sickness and death and her adolescence, compounded by adoption issues, came together at the same time, and she has had to navigate some choppy personal waters as we have tried to put our personal relationship back together over the course of the past three years.  I am pleased at the determined young woman I see in front of me, and am happy that she took so much determination and refusal to back down from her mother, character strengths that will serve her well in the long run.   Eventually, I think, she will see and appreciate the softness that is the flipside of my at times, at least in her eyes,  too stern and responsibility-driven personality.

We give to our children.  We never quite know what they will take and what they will leave.  We make an indelible mark on them, for good and for bad, and hope that we haven’t screwed them up too much.  Sure, they will spend the rest of their lives sorting through our legacy to them, but we are blessedly reminded, even if only on one day a year, that this child carries on our legacy, just as they create their own.

Happy Father’s Day.

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