I take a lot of pictures. A lot. Like upwards of 35,000 in Magoo’s first four years of life. And there’s one picture that I keep resnapping — one of TJ and the girls walking side by side, sometimes hand in hand. I’ve taken it in many different settings, sometimes with Magoo, sometimes with Goose, and sometimes with both of them. There’s just something about seeing a six foot something man walking hand in hand with a two and a half foot little girl. Especially knowing that in that big, tall man who sometimes holds the weight of the world on his shoulders, nothing is more important than that little hand that he holds.
I remember being probably about eleven years old. I was sitting on the floor in the kitchen with my dad, tracing letters onto a piece of poster board. My dad was helping me measure the distance between the letters and helping me arrange the planets onto the poster. It was for a science contest in junior high. I think the theme was solar energy or something of the sort. And I had come of with the genius slogan, “Sun: the light of lights.”
I didn’t win the contest, and honestly, I have no idea what I meant by that slogan. But I can clearly picture that poster in my head, and I clearly remember how special I felt the whole time I was making it because my dad was right there by my side. Putting all of his cares to the side, letting his world revolve around this seventh grade science poster. The judges might not have thought it was the best, but I knew it was the best because my dad said so and little girls aren’t too apt to think their dads are ever wrong.
I was always good at school. Intelligent or not, you can decide, but at school, I did well. And I can’t help but think that had to do with all of those hours in the kitchen, making posters, studying vocabulary words, constructing dioramas of plantations. I remember I had a final my last week of graduate school, and even then, all those years later, I was still using those study techniques my dad had taught me while sitting around the kitchen table.
But it wasn’t all school work. I have many memories with my dad — Indian Princess campouts, family vacations, pitching camp in high school (and let me tell you, being my catcher was dangerous!). There were father daughter dances and professional baseball games, favorite tv shows and trips to the bowling alley. And there was the dinner the week before I got married. I was later asked to write a paper discussing what five objects most clearly define my life, and the rosary my dad gave me at that dinner made the list. It maybe wasn’t the actual rosary itself but rather the relationship it reflected that helped define me. Because in so many ways, a little girl’s relationship with her dad will help define the life she will lead. And I am so grateful for the relationship I had. And have.
They say that a girl grows up and marries a man like her dad. I like that thought. Because to say that I married a man like my dad is the greatest compliment I could give to either my dad or to TJ. We live in a world of good men. But these two are great.
A good man will go to his child’s sporting events.
A great man will really care about the game.
A good man will encourage his children to read.
A great man will spend hours reading Little House on the Prairie and Beauty and the Beast to them.
A good man will support his family.
A great man knows that this support is much more than financial.
A good man will try to teach his children values.
A great man will live those values and inspire his children to walk along side him in a life of dignity, honor, and value.
I’ve lived a privileged life. I did and do have many blessings. Too many to count. But perhaps my greatest blessing is to have been raised in the household I was and to now be able to raise my children with as much love and devotion as I was raised with.
And so this morning as we were wrapping TJ’s gift, Magoo asked me why we celebrate Father’s Day. I was in a hurry and she is only five, so I gave her a quick answer about gratitude. But if I really had the opportunity to give her a solid answer, I would tell her because a daddy gives his children the very deepest parts of himself. He invests himself in their lives and their successes as much as he does his own. He may not want to dress as a prince all the time or break his back every night tossing his little girls on the bed while chanting rhymes they will remember into their thirties. But they do.
They show up.
They invest.
They model.
They care.
And they love. Through it all, a little girl and later a grown woman can know she is loved by the only two men in her life who will ever truly matter – her daddy and her husband.
That’s why we celebrate Father’s Day. And that is why I have been very blessed.