Father’s Day hits different for people.

For me, it’s often about quiet reflection. A calm, silent stepping away to just sit in what “being a father” means to me.

Or rather, what my relationship with my son means to me. What it means to be his father - to get that chance.

1/

As a divorced dad, Father’s Day is one of those default days where of course one or the other parent is supposed to have their child.

I’ve never felt that tug. I’ve had my son for some or all of most Father’s Days but that has never weighed on me with any great importance.

2/

I’ve never been all that interested in the ceremony of it.

I don’t need the ritual of cards and calls and breakfasts made.

Instead, Father’s Day usually finds me quiet and contemplative. At peace in thoughts heavy with life’s importance and meaning.

3/

And so I am again this year.

My son is in the other room playing online with his friends.

The house is quiet but for the occasional sound of their conversation and laughter.

4/

We’ve only been home an hour.

The drive home was the same as it has been his entire life.

Me happy to see him. Us catching up with the radio down as if it has been longer than it has.

It has always been that way. We talk. We have always talked.

5/

A week or two ago, we were driving somewhere talking and he said “I don’t know if I will be as good a dad as you.”

I said “You’ll be better. You will be a better father than me.

I am a better father than mine was.

He will be better than me.

6/

As his father, I filled outages and gaps that were left unfilled for me as a kid.

I repaired some things that were broken.

I have modeled the intentional opposite of what was modeled for me.

I am proud of that.

7/

But while my own model of fatherhood is strong in places where my own father’s was weak, it is not without failures.

There are things that come easily to other parents but not to me. There are places where I am not good enough.

I know these things all too well. I feel them.

8/

As I told my son in that conversation “Nothing in life makes you wish you were perfect like being a parent.”

Nothing makes the weight of your mistakes feel like anvils more than your children being on the other side of them.

10/

If only it were possible to be a perfect parent, to find it all easy, to always know what to do, and do it well.

If only it were possible to be loved by our children because we earned it with the perfectness of our parenting.

That just isn’t how it works.

11/

Still, my relationship with my son is like a rock.

It is solid and durable and resilient.

The underlying foundation is immovable.

We are built on solid ground.

12/

We have inevitable storms. We have periods of conflict both big and small but they pass.

They move in and move out, in part, because we both know they’re just weather.

Even when you can’t see the mountain, it is only the clouds that have moved.

13/

My relationship with my son isn’t strong because I’m always successful as a parent.

It is strong despite my failures.

It is the product of acceptance and forgiveness. In both directions.

To be a parent is to frequently forgive.

To love a parent is much the same.

14/

I don’t know how my son and I have come to have this mountain. It is only partially of my crafting.

Today, what settles upon me most is just how important it is to me and just how lucky I am to have it.

15/

And like I do on most Father’s Day, I’m just going to sit at peace in its shadow.

The opportunity of fatherhood, the sum total of its responsibilities and gifts, has been the greatest blessing of my life.

And today, I’m just sitting quietly drinking in that view.

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