Father's Day

With Fathers Day coming up, this is a good time to honor our fathers. They fertilized the seed that became you. They offer protection, and hopefully find time after their financial responsibilities to play with their children, give affection, and take an interest in their children's lives.

My father was able to do that. Those were the days when there was a strong middle class, and he worked only about 25 hours a week, and made enough money as a family physician to save for my college, and take frequent family vacations.

He taught me how to hit a baseball, get good at tennis, and play a mean game of chess.

We were both crazy about saltwater fishing. We spent hours on the ocean being silent, side by side, feeling and enjoying our bond. And he never felt jealous that I usually caught fish before him.

He wanted me to follow in his footsteps and become a doctor. As adolescence approached, however, it became abundantly clear my feet were hellbent on following a different path–any path but his.

My Dad had no idea how to deal with me and my rebellion. He grew silent and distant, erecting a wall, and pretended he didn't care about me. I hated him for that. I expressed my hurt and anger just as covertly as he did, by pretending I didn’t want anything to do with him either. We resided under the same roof, while living a thousand miles away from each other.

There were many hard feelings between us; feelings that thickened like cement as time went by.

For much of my 20’s and 30’s, I went about my life without much of a relationship with my father. We had stopped trying to change each other, but the walls remained thick and cold between us. We had both written off the relationship as having flatlined, incapable of resuscitation.

I had plenty of evidence for my father’s prosecution, having witnessed him verbally and physically abuse me, my sisters, and my mother.

After decades of distance, I reached out to him across the miles and walls. To make a long story short, I made the first move by writing him a vulnerable letter. A few weeks later, I got a letter in the mail back. It started with, “Scott your letter touched me deeper than I can say. I cried like a baby while reading it.”

I couldn’t imagine it, because I had never seen my father cry before. Many letters followed. Then visits, me coming from California to see him in NY.

Somehow, we both laid down our armor and got real with each other. I was amazed at his willingness to not be defensive, and he was also touched by my openness. It was as if we gave our relationship a clean slate.

He was cremated at 84, and I am so glad we buried the hatchet long before that. We found out together that love is stronger than steel, and the pain of the past can be put behind us.

For men in this culture, expertly trained in the self-defense of hiding our hearts in anger and using apathy as self-defense to cover up our hurt, it felt like some kind of miracle. We got to know each other anew, and we became more interested in being close rather than in being right.

This Father’s Day we invite you to find it in your heart to really toast and celebrate your Dad. Tell him, show him, that you honor and love him dearly. He was not perfect, and you may have all kinds of mixed feelings about him.

But sort through your mixed feelings, find the positive ones, and blast him with your love. If he is deceased like my Dad, blast his spirit and honor him in your memory.

Making peace with our fathers leads to becoming kinder, and wiser people. And forgiving him his trespasses makes you a better parent.

Dads do their best. They rarely live up to our hopes and expectations. Fathers Day is a day to let all that go and celebrate your old man. We hope you have fun in that process.