_____ Father’s Day

Because my father is no longer with us as of a mere two weeks ago, I reserve every right to hate this day with every atom.

I know in my heart that today is basically a made up holiday, promoted by greeting card companies to push cards and gifts in a dry retail sales time. It’s great marketing, honestly. I can’t argue with it. It serves as a decent reminder to cherish your father and let him know you appreciate him for all he is and all he has done. It’s an excuse to say all the things you want to say and make sure your father hears you, because, after all, “it’s Father’s Day.”

If I didn’t know I’d have had to be blind and deaf and never have interacted with the internet at all. Seven out of eight emails for the past two weeks have been about this day. Buy this to let dad know you love him. Subscribe your father to this to make sure he knows you care. Donate to this cause, because dad would want you to. I plan to stay clear of all media today, just so I don’t have it constantly put in my face as it has been for every waking moment.

I should be filled with seething rage and loathe every moment of this infernal retail invention holiday.

But I am not.

You see, for the whole of my life, I have marked this day with outpourings of love and appreciation. Even when my parents were divorced or my father and I were at odds, there was something about this day that got outside whatever circumstance was visiting us and allowed my sister and myself to look objectively at the role our dad played in our lives…and let him know.

I don’t want anyone thinking this was all a noble pursuit. There were years that we did this begrudgingly, forced by schoolteachers or our mother to write something and send it via mail or refrigerator magnet. But we did it.

One of the things that most crushed us as we were going through my father’s effects was that he had saved all of them. Cards, construction paper, random gift attempts, they were all there in a box, with various degrees of legibility (the difference between lower case and upper case letters was a mystery to both my sister and I for far longer than I care to admit).

And what wrecks me instead, today, is the one from two years ago. Because, two years ago, I decided to be honest with my dad about everything I was feeling on Father’s Day. And I drove down and gave him a written letter inside a great card I found that had, oddly, one of his nicknames for me that was also my nickname for him, on occasion (no…those of you who ever were around my father and I, it wasn’t the Spanish word for “big goat” that is also a curse word…but which brings tears to my eyes).

But that card wasn’t in the box.

That card was in a frame, sitting next to his bed. And it is that card that is hurting me today. Because I didn’t have questions about whether my dad loved me or I loved my dad. I didn’t struggle with expressing that for him and receiving that from him. It’s not how he built me. He loved huge and taught me to love huge, and the most monolithic love was saved for him.

And I’m very sad today that I can’t say it all over again in a different or better way.

But I hope and I pray he wouldn’t have needed it. After all, mere feet from his bed, he had his reminder.

I miss you so much, Dad. I wish I could call today and tell you all this stuff and tell you I’m struggling with this day and have you tell me, “Nombre, mijo. No llores.”

I can’t say it much better than I did two years ago, so I’ll let those words speak.

“Hey Dad!

There’s a million things I could say about the father you have been to me. It won’t be anything I haven’t said before. But, as I get older and deal with surprise stress, like kids doing what kids do, job stress, bills, moving, and a global virus…I realize what kind of man, what kind of father you built me to be. And I appreciate all of what you did and what you’ve been, even more. When things go wrong, people look to me for calm and to make decisions. That’s you. When people are scared or feat, they find me for reassurance that it will all be ok. That’s you. When my friends or my girls need a kind word or a reminder of who they are, they call or write. That’s you.

Dad, the father I can be and the man I am…are you.

I can’t thank you enough for being my dad. Happy Father’s Day!”

That’s the gist of it, isn’t it? That’s the thing that’s hurting and the shortcoming I still feel I have. I simply can’t thank him enough for being my dad.

And, on this day, which I do kind of want to hold in contempt for how much it reminds me that he is not here to thank, this day which makes me want to rage at the universe for taking my dad from me, I simply can’t be all fury, all sadness. Not completely, anyway.

I was so blessed for so long, and I’ll always be thankful, on this day and every day, that I had the dad I had.

I miss you, Papacito. Happy Father’s Day.