Life is funny in the way that it is serious and joyful and a strain and also brings such delight. I was looking for a picture of you, to share with my wishes that you have a great day being loved and honored for the good man you are, and the one I found of you in the café made me smile, seeing your big smile. I looked at your eyes, the same sincere crinkles that perch above my cheeks too when I’m light of heart and happy to smile back at the cameraperson. I saw then for the first time, suddenly, despite all our time together last winter, how you’ve begun to look more like Grandpa than Dad; resolved, at peace with life and yourself, ready to say something that will make someone laugh; jolly even. For the first time I saw your gray hair all at once; processed it. You still have a lot of big plans but I’m seeing more clearly now how time is real in the way comings and goings are real; in the way making dinner and choosing a movie together and you cleaning the haze off of my headlight is real. I smiled seeing you smiling, then cried just as easily as I smiled.
How many more dinners do we have together? How many more seasons will an envelope of your sunflower seeds arrive to the mailbox with a smiley face sticker on the back? How many more hugs, how many more laughs, how many drives?
I don’t know what it’s like to be a Dad, or a man, a boy, a brother, a son. But thank how you navigated the flow of your life to become a man who sees it with hopeful eyes and does what’s needed to make it better in all the ways that are in your power to do. Thank you for being the father I needed to learn appreciation of the little things, to be understood in the ways you especially well understand.
As I’ve grown, I’ve often not known how to just hang out with others, comfortably sit around and talk without doing much of anything. But with you it’s easy just to be there and be at peace. The notes from your guitar drift through the house and find their way to every room and say, “here’s a way to be here together.” I’m grateful my life has come with that.
I don’t know how many more visits or morning cups of coffee or airport pickups or drop offs or long phone calls or simple strolls around the grocery store we get to have together still but I’ll treasure every one of them a little more. I couldn’t think of a better Dad for me and I’m so comforted by the connection we share. Only recently has it made me think for all the times we have been on the same *wavelength*, on the other’s mind and picking up the phone to message at the same time, how it must be the same with our Father God. How He’s thinking of us, how He knows us, how He loves to do the heavy lifting for us, and just about anything with us, to have a little laugh together, how we smile like Him.
This Father’s Day I hope you feel my love for you and also feel Fathered so well by God; that His company will delight you as you have also given delight to me in every song, meal, drive through special spaces, shared knowing.
A Father’s love is at its best a strong, secure, and providing love, a playful and strengthening and guiding love. You have given me this love, and I am thankful. Thank you for the strength, protection, security, insights, conversations, perspective, and support you have always given me. I love you. May God bless you with a great day, and many more of them.
Ashley, Ash, Beanhead 🌻♥️
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