I didn’t send my dad a Father’s Day card last year. The situation was complicated.
I had forgotten to get cards, as usual. Life seems to run in fast forward for me these days, and the niceties of life sometimes often get lost in the shuffle.
I handed my oldest son some money and asked him to run into the store and buy two Father’s Day cards: one for my “step” dad (who raised me) and one for my “real” dad, who shares my genetic code. I assumed he would buy Grandpa cards, but instead he came out with two cards addressed to “dad”. I looked them over skeptically, and quickly determined that both cards were totally unsuitable for either man. Sigh.
One card was sentimental and mushy, the other glib and silly, causing a quandary. Which “dad” would get the sentimental card, full of expressions of love and gratitude? As I looked over the cards I felt the weight of a lifetime of uncertainty.
Growing up, I tried to tell myself that I had two knights in shining armor, so I was luckier than all the other girls. But there is something in a girl’s heart that longs for exclusivity. I had two fathers, yet somehow grew up feeling fatherless.
I kept things fair and didn’t send cards at all last year. I didn’t even take the time to call either of my dads on Father’s Day. I was busy with my husband and making sure that my own kids honored their dad. Before I realized it the day was over, and it was late. I rationalized that my step dad is a talker and it would take too long, and my other dad and I don’t talk very often anyway.
I managed to call my “dad” a few days later. I apologized for not sending a card, and we laughed together about how he celebrated Father’s Day by buying himself a new (used) car and eating not one—but two—half gallons of ice cream, all by himself. That was dad, all right.
Oh, how I wish I had known that we would only speak once more in this lifetime. He was killed a few months later in a motorcycle accident. When my sister and I flew to Arizona to clear out his home I saw that he had framed the Father’s Day card she had sent that year, and hung it on the wall. My card was still at my home, unsent.
I realize now that I should have mailed a card, and his sudden absence crystallized which card it should have been. The man who raised me will always be “dad” in my heart. I should have let him know, on Father’s Day—and every day—how grateful I was for him, and how much I loved him. I shouldn’t have been embarrassed to express what he meant to me. I should have taken the time to make a phone call, and let him know how important he was.
Thankfully, my dad knew anyway. He knew my heart, for we had talked of my love and gratitude on many other occasions. And he knew all about the busy-ness of my life, as he lived with my family for months on end during two prolonged seasons of sickness.
I realized in his death what I had not realized in his lifetime. I did not grow up fatherless. I did have a knight in shining armor. I just didn’t recognize him until he was gone.
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