The best Father's Day ever
I'm proud of having raised thoughtful daughters.
One of the biggest—and there are many—downsides of having me as a Dad is my quirkiness. I have, as my mom says, “Funny ways.” One of those funny ways is my obsessiveness regarding the things that matter most to me. For example, I have told my girls, since they old enough to understand Father’s Day, that they are forbidden from buying me gifts for the occasion. In 2019, they asked me why.
“Because you two are the blessings I prayed for when I was 12 years old. You’re the greatest gift I could ever have received.”
The lone exception loophole
The one gift I do look forward to, however, is a handwritten note from each of them, which is a habit they began in elementary school. It’s always written on a piece of folded copier paper, though they do add custom designs with markers and such. The notes are often long but always personal, sincere, and heartfelt. I keep them all in a box with the girls’ mementos going back to 2004, when Ari was born.
This year, however, they had a little surprise in store: In addition to their notes, they decided to use my own loophole against me. They bought me socks, a new coffee mug, and a new food processor, which I’ve wanted to make homemade meals for Coco Maxx, our poodle mix. (The loophole refers to their ability to buy me items I need but that they know I likely won’t buy for myself.)
An emotional surprise times two
Unlike in previous years, when I would read the notes after dinner in front of the girls, I didn’t open and read the notes until later that night, when I noticed them on my desk after I came in from the pool.
I read Arden’s note first, knowing it’s always the longest and most colorful—literally and figuratively. Then I opened Ari’s note expecting it to be her usual: Something along the lines of, “You know I don’t like wordy messages, but—.”
Instead, her message was one paragraph, including the following sentence:
“No other dad is as passionate as you are about fatherhood; it means the world to me.”
I read that line, jumped from my chair, and walked around the house briefly. She’s said this to me before, but to read it made it all the more real. I’ve told the girls for years a message they can recite by heart:
“I work hard at being a good husband; I know I’m really good at my job; but I’ll put myself in the top 0.0001% of Dads in the world. That’s not arrogance. That’s a testament to how much it means to me and how hard I work at it. I don’t crave any titles save one: I want you to think of me, now and forevermore, as ‘The best Father you could ever have had.’ Because you deserve it.”
The next day, the message below popped up on my phone, written eight years earlier.
The surprise of surprises
Later, Arden sent me a text with the note, “This is your Father’s Gift.” The song, by a local recording artist, was written by her. You can imagine my response.
A few lines from the song:
“You’d drop everything to be at our sides
Always teaching us about our spirit and our minds
Always at activities no matter how small
If I ever need a thing from you I can always call”AND
“Remember all the daddy daughter trips every year
Looking at the crowd seeing you at the events
Learning I could never accept anything less from a man
And a father, knowing to look forward that’s my plan”
It was the best Father’s Day ever—yet!—of many, many more to come.
From the files
I found the clipping below while cleaning out some old files. The article is from 2007, which is the year my youngest was born. It’s also from right around the time that my old pastor from Atlanta and his family came to Orlando to visit us. I remember us all sitting in Landry’s Seafood near Disney World and him saying to me, “Understand the commitment you have right their in your hands; you’ll be blessed through your girls and your relationship with them.”
You can read the article on line here.
What I’m reading
I've read part of this book in the past and hear it referenced often, but reading it in its entirety is something altogether different. I can already see that The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, will be one of the best books I read all year.
