One thing I absolutely love about social media are the posts on the holidays, especially the holidays that spotlight individuals. Veterans Day is one, but the ones I especially enjoy are Mother's Day and Father's Day. I spent time today scrolling through posts from family, friends, and even strangers who posted pictures, recalled memories, and gave thanks for their fathers. It helps change the image of not only how I see social media, but of humanity. If only we could be the people we are today everyday.
It's impossible for me not to think of my own father on this day (and on Veterans Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day...). A few years before my mother passed away she compiled a book full of photos, family histories, and memories of the people in my family. There are several sections dedicated to my father.
I'm so glad they're there.
You can see from these photos my father was born a long time ago and passed away almost fifty years later. I was eight-years old when he died. I knew the man as "dad," but I did not know the man who grew up in the Great Depression and used his excelling marksmanship skill to literally help feed his family, the man who at twenty-years old enlisted for one of the most dangerous jobs in the army, the man who became a policeman, an engineer, a judge.
I have been fortunate enough to be a father of four amazing people. They've never known a day without a father. As friends my age grow older, their parents are leaving them behind and passing away. For the first time in their lives, they know what it's like to not have someone there, someone who protects them, shelters them, defends them, loves them. And it's hard.
Maybe that's why I love seeing all these posts celebrating these men that are so important to them. I can see the role fathers have played in their lives. But instead of being sad that I didn't have that, I'm glad they did. It's one of the great joys of being a child.
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