Father’s Day has been bittersweet for me the past four years. My husband has been a father for four years… but I’ve been without my father for that same amount of time. I want to celebrate my husband and thank him for the amazing job he does with our children, but at the same time, I feel the loss of my own dad so deeply that it almost makes the day unbearable. Unfortunately, time has not healed this wound.
To Mark, my husband, I say thank you for your sacrifices in caring for our family. I have never seen a man lay down his life for others like you have for us. As a father, you are gentle, endlessly patient, and wise. You know our children- their interests, their temperments, the little things that make them laugh. You know their deepest faults and their greatest talents. You model to me how Christ loves his church when you care for our children. You are an example of Christ’s love for children. You have obeyed God in regards to the treatment of His covenant children. They have received the sign of the covenant in baptism. They receive catechesis at home and in the church. Through your wisdom, they receive the manifold blessings of being part of Christ’s church. I have no doubt that they will one day be confessing members due to your diligence in teaching and training them.
To my own dad, though you have passed on to glory, I say thank you for being the best of men. Thank you for your generosity and for the life you poured out in service to others- to your family, your friends, and your community. Thank you for being my best friend and my protector. Even through the tests and trials, you guided me through and helped me make the good choices that ultimately led me to the life I have now… a life that I truly love. Thank you for allowing me to go to Bible school abroad, for it is there that I met my amazing husband. Thank you for sending me to university so that I could further my intellectual and spiritual development. Thank you for sharing your faith with me. Thank you for coming to me when we lost our daughter. You were one of the very few people who saw her and held her. Thank you for paying for her gravestone so that there is a tangible reminder that she was here and that she was and is very much loved. Thank you for showing us the true meaning of “dying with dignity.” Your incredible faith among the most difficult trial is something I was privileged to witness. And to see you pass on to glory, to be there at that precious moment… daddy, I’ll never forget it. You are the first to really know our beloved Grace. You are another anchor we have in heaven.
Happy Father’s Day to all those blessed men who have undertaken the most incredible task of fatherhood.
This is a wonderful tribute. You know, even when I have been through almost exactly the same thing as another person, I still don’t often say, “I understand what you are feeling.”
But I got close to saying that, and I may have already told you that when I was 29 going on 30, and had been married a few years and still was not pregnant, I had a father – one of the “Greatest Generation,” a bone fide survivor of the Battle of the Bulge, and good provider for his family – who was begging for grandchildren. I knew how crazy he was about babies and little kids. Well – he died in a car accident the summer of 1988, and a couple weeks later I was pregnant with his first grandchild, who is now an adult.
Four years did not heal this wound for me, either. It’s been 21 years now, and I can now look at the calendar I got this year from my brother’s wife (she takes family pictures and makes a caledar of them). This year’s calendar was titled “Memories Of My Father.” It’s been 21 years, and I’m only a very slightly choked up right now, writing this. But I can look at each picture in that calendar with affection, and sometimes amusement, and for that I am happy.
I just want to say that time does heal these wounds, but in some cases it just takes more of it. It helps more than I can say to have the assurance that I know he professed faith in Christ before he died, and I know we will be together some day again, and he will be able to see his granddaughters face to face, all of them.
((((((hugs))))) to you both.