A Father's Day Letter from my Dad

*A Father's Day note from my dad. I loved it enough to post it! We had a great, relaxing Father's Day and hope you did, too. I'm blessed to have a dad that's in the details of my life. I love you, Dad!

I started this blog note for Lindsee last week anticipating Father’s day. I started writing this before I told her I was doing so for Father’s day and not knowing if she would even post it. So if you are reading this she decided to post it. It is Lindsee’s blog and I thought that maybe a bit of me would be interesting or semi-insightful as to how Lindsee has been affected based on a few thoughts about being her father.

1) Actually I am a father to three wonderful children. Lindsee has brothers on either side of her. That explains a bunch about Lindsee. (hopefully she will insert a picture showing her brothers) I love being a Dad. It is the hardest job I have ever had. You don’t get an operators manual with children. You figure it out as you go with the help of others. But still each child is unique. I don’t think I understood that completely until Lindsee’s younger brother arrived. Up until then I thought that children were all placed along a straight line. Then Kev came and all of a sudden there was more than one line. And the lines moved. Wait a minute, what is going on here? Fatherhood. I am still figuring it out with Lindsee’s mother (my wife), Kristy.

2) As a father, I don’t get girls. I am a boy so I get boys. My sister was eight years younger than me so I wasn’t very aware of her growing up because I was a boy and she couldn’t make sandwiches for me. I must now admit that I didn’t really get girls when I was dating. I thought I did but in hindsight I was a dork. They knew it but were kind. I have been happily married for 31 years. I have been hard to live with but my wife is kind. I still have to work at understanding because I am a boy. I don’t get the thing about clothes. Once I took Lindsee shopping for running shoes. We bought shoes, left the store and six months later I found the shoes in her closet in the box they were purchased in. When I asked why I was told that she would not wear them because they were ugly. Why did we buy them I asked? Because you just wanted to hurry and leave I was told. That would be a true statement because I don’t get why you would want to spend any more time than necessary buying shoes. This is something girls do. Please see the first sentence.

3) Having sons and daughters is a wild ride. Parts of it works as I understand it to and some does not (see previous paragraph). As I reflect I can see that I have raised my boys to be the ones that take care of things. I have raised Lindsee to take care of people. This was not that intentional an effort but it seems that it works out that way. I used to tell the boys that Lindsee was to be taken care of. She is my only daughter (which she reminds me of from time to time). But as I have watched them grow into adults I see things more completely. She is wonderful at caring for others and about others. She gives thoughtful gifts. She says thoughtful things. She is a teacher at heart. She will be a great mother. My boys are responsible men who own up and work hard. They work harder and more diligently than I. They understand what needs to be done and they do it. They will be good fathers someday. I say this because it allows me to rest better at night.

4) But, being a father doesn’t mean you sleep better as your children get older. Again, this is somewhere in the manual that I never got or doesn’t exist. When the kids were little we had little problems. Bumps, bruises, hurt feelings about not being able to stay at Jenny’s house overnight, needing to study more and so on. And I am the first one to acknowledge the blessings we have had in this area as others have suffered more with their children. I will often say that I am defined by my faith, my family and my friends. That’s 99% of who I am. As I have aged into my 50’s I find that those three items occupy a huge part of my free thought time. Obviously I have to work and do that as diligently as I am able. But that does not define who I am (although I get a kick out of the fact that the first thing that I ask someone I have met is “what do you do?”). My prayers are still for their safety, health and general well being but, the more important ones are how they live their lives, who they live with, how they impact those around them, how they make decisions, how they handle the decisions that they make and the list could go on. But it’s the big stuff that I won’t always be able to help with.

5) I always hope that they know that I love them unconditionally. There have been times when I have not liked something they have done (reference the running shoe paragraph). I had to correct them, chastise them, and spank them on occasion. But I have never stopped loving them. They have had me wrapped around their little fingers before they were born. There will not be a time on this Earth that I will not. I will understand love completely on the other side but on this side of eternity, I think it is as close as I can get.

I love being a dad. I recently wrote a song about being a dad and getting older. It’s called “This Old House”. I will try to get a recording up so you can hear it. I wrote it because it helps me understand where I am going and what I want to be. A man of Faith, a husband, a father and a friend. That would be a pretty good thing to be known as.

And on this Father’s day I want to simply say thank you to Kristy (who had the biggest part in making me a dad), Brien, Lindsee and Kevyn. I love you and always will.



On Father's Day this year at Red Fish Grill.

We miss you, Kev!



Love,
My Dad