Father's Day...

Had our annual family gathering Sunday around this old father and one father/son, Shane. I appreciated the gifts and cards of kind remembrance. I could say it was one more exercise in guilt for all the fathering I didn't do out of bumbling trial and error and ignorance, but got better at with my grandkids than with my own kids perhaps. I could say fatherhood is a gift I didn't deserve, though I always wanted to be one - and got lucky when a beautiful woman who married me also wanted to have kids with me and be a mother many times over. I could say that having kids is not the same as fathering kids, that it's not as instinctive as mothering, but equally as rewarding when given a chance. I could talk about the encroaching fatherless in today's sick society where over a third of all kids are being raised without a father - and it's getting worse. I could talk about my own father who worked two jobs to support us and who I should have honored more. I could talk about a successful man who said that his greatest title in life was father and that his work titles and degrees were insignificant when compared with being called "Dad". I'm just glad I've had the experience and probably will never stop fathering my kids, though not in the same way. Thanks to Colleen for the amazing c0operative effort and to our mortally clothed eternal spirits, made blessedly more in her image than mine - Quinn, Megan, Shane, Erin, Shannon, Caitilin, Sean and Conn, who have taught me more about fathering than any book ever could.