Confession
time!
I hate
Father’s Day. For the past 20 years, every single Father’s Day, since my dad
died, I have put on a smile and gone through the motions and pretended that it
was a happy occasion, but deep inside, taking a day to celebrate fatherhood has
made me feel like an orphan. I see people sharing photos of themselves with
their dads and talking about fun things they do with their dads and giving
their dads the honor that they so rightfully deserve and it makes me sad that I
can’t even remember the sound of my dad’s voice anymore. (This sounds terribly depressing, but keep reading!!)
Every year
on Father’s Day, at church, we sing the beautiful hymn, Oh My Father, and it
takes me back to one of the last memories I have of my dad… singing that hymn
at his funeral. Every word of that hymn is sacred to me for that reason and I
can’t even read the words without experiencing a rush of emotion that takes me
back to that day 21 years ago, when we said our final goodbyes. So I sit in
church and blubber my way through it and people look at me like I’m weird
because of my reaction.
For the past
20 years, I have tried to take this time to pay tribute to the man that my dad
became and to focus on the men I have in my life… a wonderful husband and
father to my children, who is an honorable man, 5 brothers and a brother in law,
two sons, two sons-in-law, a step dad who is so good to my mother and great grandfather to my children, the father
and fathers in law and step father to my married children, and all those other men in my
life who in their own way define fatherhood. But all of that still hasn’t been
able to fill the void, that gaping hole in my heart that causes me to yearn to
have my daddy wrap me in his arms and whisper in my ear how proud he is of me
and how much he loves me….
But this
year… well, this year has been different. This year, I didn’t dread the arrival
of Father’s day with every day that passed since Mother’s Day, like I did in
years past. I didn’t find myself focusing on my own jealousies and feelings of
insecurity as I let anger seep into my heart because I didn’t have a dad to
wrap my mortal arms around and hug with all the love in my heart. I didn’t have
a meltdown in the card aisle because I don’t have a way to send my dad a Father’s
day card and how unfair it is that he was taken from us at such a young age. Whatever
the reason, there was no pity party. I was somehow distracted enough to be
spared the days of dread leading up to this celebration of the amazing men in
my life. I guess you could say that it snuck up on me this year. I knew it was
coming, I prepared for it yesterday and so when I was sitting in church and
they announced the hymn, itkind of took me by surprise and I thought, “oh yeah…
here we go again”. But to my surprise, I didn’t get transported back to the
sadness that I bore sitting in the front pew of the chapel 21 years ago. This
year, I felt a warmth fill my soul as I was barely able to mouth the words of
the hymn. I was so overcome with a feeling of love that I didn’t even notice
the people sitting next to me asking me a question in the middle of the song.
This year, for the first time in the 20 Father’s Days that have come and gone
since my dad left this earth, I didn’t feel like an orphan. The talks today
were so beautiful and the lessons were exactly what I needed to help me to be
able to feel the closeness of my earthly father as well as my Heavenly Father,
as I felt their spirits convey to me the love that I have felt cheated out of
every year for the past 20 years. This year is a turning point. While I no
longer remember what my dad’s embrace feels like and I no longer remember the
sound of his voice, I was able to be touched by his spirit and my soul felt his
love in a whole new way.
Today, I no
longer feel the need to be a hater. I feel liberated of the burden of dreading
this holiday and I feel more able to focus with true sincerity on the amazing
father figures in my life who have carried me all these years and in their own
small ways, helped to fill the void that has been present in my life, not just
on a designated day in June, but every single day that has passed since June 28th,
1993. I know with everything in me that it is because of the Atonement of Jesus
Christ that we are able to heal from hurts and losses and the injustices of
this life. It is through the Atonement that that I will be able to spend time
with my dad again after I have completed my purpose on this earth. Today, I am
truly grateful for that knowledge and for the peace and comfort and hope that
it brings to my life and I feel like part of the wound of losing my dad has
finally healed. Sometimes it takes years for that healing to come, but I trust
that everything happens on God’s timetable and today, I am truly happy for not
only my earthly father, but for a Heavenly Father that continues to have
patience with me when it sometimes takes me a REALLY long time to understand
things.
With all sincerity, Happy Father's Day!!!
