We didn't celebrate any of those "fake" holidays. Every Saturday was Mother's Day, when my mum had the four of us trained to fight over who got to bring her breakfast in bed. (She has yet to reveal to me how she managed that.) Valentine's Day was just the holiday a week or so before my brother's Heart Day, the reason all the heart-shaped paraphernalia was so cheap while we celebrated the real February holiday; the anniversary of the day when he had his tiny chest cut open and the hole in his own heart repaired. And no one really talked about Father's Day; we just kind of ignored it, like we did Flag Day and Presidents' Day and Columbus Day. The only reason we even cared about the latter of those is because it conveniently always fell on Canadian Thanksgiving, and the resulting long weekend was time enough that we could head to Toronto to see the cousins.
So when I log on to Google and see the name all made out of ties, when the speaker at the Sunday meeting opens by talking about dads and reminds us all that we still have time to make that phone call? That doesn't really mean too much to me.
Except that, all of a sudden, it does.
It might be because he was just here, this dad of mine. He picked up and came halfway around to world just to see me, and he did it with his trademark Cheshire-cat grin on his face the whole. entire. time, and something about that is making me think tonight.
I think I have the best dad.When I was little, I never knew that I was one of four kids, never had any sense that I needed to compete for his attention. He was just there, whenever I needed him. He would take me to the hardware store when he went to gather supplies for projects around the house. One time, he let me pick out the wood he would use to make the banister for our basement stairs. Stepped back across the aisle as I struggled to hold it up all by myself, one eye squinted shut as I looked down the length of it to make sure it was straight. When I said it was, he bought it, without ever checking.
My brothers and sister and I used to wait all afternoon for him to come home from work, hiding behind a neighbor's bush on the corner of our street and then racing his old, blue car as he inched his slow way up the street to the house. We won, more often than not, arriving back to our front door sweaty and triumphant while he grinned from behind the wheel. I was seven years old, and I believed I could run faster than a car.
He kept doing that, too. Kept teaching me that I could do things bigger than myself. When I told him I wanted to come to Africa, he sent me off with his love. And when I told him I was going to stay, that I didn't know if I was ever coming back, he didn't tell me I was crazy. Didn't try to stop me. He just got on a plane and came to see it all for himself.
I could tell you a thousand stories about my father today. Instead, I just want to say this:
I could not have asked for more in a daddy. I have never felt anything but unconditional love and acceptance from him. He taught me that piles of snow in a parking lot can be mountains to climb. That there is a world of wonder inside the covers of books. That it's okay to be smart. That it's possible to raise four children without raising your voice. (Except for that one time that we ran across his freshly-laid lawn, but I'm fairly sure the yelling was only because we were on the far side of the street by the time he got his window open.)
And in my darkest hours, when I shared with him the worst parts of me, he said nothing to accuse me, just sat me down at the kitchen table and made a piece of toast and poured me a glass of wine. From my vantage point four thousand miles and a few years away, I can see Christ in that so clearly, His body and blood offered to me without hesitation.
I think it's because of my own daddy that God as Father makes so much sense to me, that I'm so easily drawn to that aspect of His character. I think it's because I grew up with a man who modeled that to me in just about everything he did.
Happy Father's Day, daddy. Even though we all think it's a load of crap and don't really celebrate it, I just wanted you to know that I love you.
Sssssssssssssssssk.
