It’s fathers’ day here in America…I don’t know about the rest of the world. Is it a world wide celebration of fatherhood? If it isn’t, it should be. Somebody write that down and suggest it to the people in charge of such things.

I have a great dad. He has always been there for me. In the early years of our relationship he was a bit immature, but he has turned out pretty well. I can’t remember a day he hasn’t been working on something. I’ve never seen him sit down and watch foot ball with a cold beer. Seeing as he does not drink acohol, this isn’t a surprise, but even when he does sit down he is ‘working on something’ in his head. I admire him for his desire to get the job done. I think I inherited that from him.

I also admire him for putting up with a household filled mostly with girls. I do have one brother, but he was usually out ‘finding’ things in the alley or skating, so dad had to put up with girls. We weren’t girlie girls, we would sit and watch MASH or Knight Rider with him, jump on the trampoline, and even do some wood working. That was my favorite. I still like to build stuff with my dad.

I always knew that my dad was there for me. He still is. I think about people that don’t have a good relationship with their dad or that don’t have a dad anymore and it is more than my mind can handle. I know my own children are without a dad right now and even being that close still boggles my mind. Cuz I have my dad. I can’t understand it.

There was a lot of talk today at church about the importance of dads in a home. There were a lot of statistics read about criminals and wayward types that seemed to be a result of not having a ‘biological dad’ in the home. We can point lots of fingers at ‘dads’ that are deadbeats, missing, abusive, etc, but sometimes it isn’t because of any of those reasons that a kid doesn’t have a dad. Look at my kids. They had a pretty super dad. And he is gone, through nobody’s fault. It doesn’t seem fair at all.

Dads are important, there is no doubt about it. But sometimes we have to go on without one and it sucks, but people can survive. Kids can make good choices, succeed, and even learn to change their oil without a dad. It makes it harder, but not impossible.

I know my dad is there for my kids too. He tries hard to be a good grandpa and I think he does pretty good. The memory of their own dad is still roaming around the house, keeping an eye on things and reminding us that he is there. We see him in our jokes, our laughs, our scientific talks, and in our memories. He still has an influence, even though he is gone. I hope he is proud of his kids and who they are becoming. His own dad left when he was three and didn’t really come back til he was an adult, so he knows what it is like to an extent. He understands. Someday we will all be together again and we can talk about the together times and the apart times. I’m sure he will have input, cuz he always had input, but if he has any complaints about how we all turned out…I’ll smack him in the head cuz he was in charge of raising the teenagers and he bailed on me. But its all good, cause these are the fun years….cause I said so.

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