Remembering Dad

Remembering Dad on Father's Day 2025. A personal tribute.

Here it is another year and another Father’s Day. Every time this special holiday arrives on the third Sunday in June, I still find myself after forty-seven years in a bit of a funk still missing my dad terribly. I am not going to write a story all about my dad today; nor am I going to write a story about myself. This will not even be a story; there is no beginning and no end, unless you say that I was born and later on he died. The middle is only a collection of incidents that mean something special only to me, his Doodle Bug.

I wanted his company after he died. I wanted his voice in my head. I wrote because I didn’t want the conversation to end when we were finally getting to know one another on an adult level instead of that as a rebellious teenager. I needed to continue to think and write about him, so I could have the last word. I wanted him alive. I wanted to introduce him to people who mattered to me. I wanted him to be there to hold my son after he was born, and to finally see me graduate from college years after I quit school. I wanted him to see, that in the face of much adversity I did succeed in being successful in life and a good and caring mother, and human being. I wanted him to see the lessons he instilled lasted a lifetime.

My dad was a gentle soul, mild and introspective, artistic in disposition even though he never finished the eighth grade. He was admired for his kindness, his generosity and his craftsmanship as a carpenter and woodworker. When I look back at my childhood, my dad was the quietest of mythic heroes, the kind that followed his own dreams and encouraged me, not by preaching, but he lived his religion through example and his inner sense of what was right. He built our home with love and pride. He fixed broken things and raised six children, four boys and two girls. He knelt before God in church every Sunday with a reverence of heart and mind, focusing on his and his family's immortal souls. I did not understand those unspoken actions until I was much older.

My dad was the first man I ever saw with tears in his eyes. First, at his younger brother's funeral when I was nine years old. He wept as he mourned for the loss of his brother when he got the news silently within the confines of my parents’ bedroom. He never knew I was watching and listening from around the corner. His eyes welled with tears when I came home after running away for months when I was sixteen. A tear rolled down his cheek when he walked me up the aisle on my wedding day, and the day at the hospital when he first saw and held my newborn daughter.

I admit I turned into a bit of a wild child. I was not a very disciplined teen during those few years when I felt like I was forced to attend a new high school at a town over 200 miles away from everyone and everything I had loved. I saw and felt the disappointment in his eyes through the quiet moments of disillusion he showed when I rebelled, when I stayed out past my curfew, and got caught doing a few illegal things. In spite of everything, the groveling, the tears, and closing myself in my room until everything cooled down, it was always the next day we faced the issue head on. Dad would tell me why he was so upset and schooled me on the consequences of my actions and how if I continued on that path, it would affect all my future life choices. Afterwards, he would hug me and tell me he forgave me and try not to let it happen again. He forgave me and loved me despite my own selfish flaws because under all that rebellion and stubbornness, he knew I was God’s child.

Those well-meaning but flawed human beings who love their children and yet, like my own father, have a hard time putting their feelings into words. They have a hard time inserting themselves into the private bond of mothers and daughters, and they have a hard time knowing how to deal with their daughter’s fledging sexuality. To most daughters, fathers are perhaps the most personal topic of all, you can’t escape them and yet feel you can’t quite pin them down.

This anthology is not complete, as no anthology on this powerful and universal relationship between a father and his child could be. This is not so much about who my father was, or what my father did, as about what he could make me feel. How he wiped my tears or cradled me in his calloused hands until I fell asleep. The bedtime stories he told or the little dance we did when he came home from work. I was always proud to be his daughter, and even after forty-seven years after his passing, I am still proud to call him my dad.

For those of you who have fathers still here on this planet, reach out to them even if it has been a long time. Give them a call, write them a letter, send them a card, give them a hug and tell them “Thanks.” They did their best, even when it may not have always produced the best outcome. They loved you in their own ways, even though sometimes that way was difficult for you to understand. They are proud of you, even if they never say or said it. You only have one lifetime to do this, for tomorrow may never come.

Happy Father’s Day, Daddy! I love you and have miss you in my life so much.

Always With Love and Appreciation,

Your Doodle Bug