Another Day in the Country
Another Fathers Day card
© Another Day in the Country
In the first few months of the year, several occasions remind us to be grateful for the people closest to us in our lives.
There’s Valentine’s Day, with its emphasis on sweethearts but that stretches to include anyone and everyone that we care about if we so choose.
There’s Mothers Day with it’s obvious intention for honoring women with children but that can include grandmothers and aunts and sweet neighbor ladies just as easily as your mom.
And here we are with Fathers Day coming up on the calendar.
This occasion was always an uneasy holiday for me. My dad was not the lovable sort. He was what I characterized as a lot of work.
As a teenager, I was quite willing to be carted off to boarding school for my last three years of high school mainly because I was getting away from him.
It’s not that Dad wasn’t a good person. A lot of people liked him. Even more looked up to him and appreciated his work ethic, his dedication, his sermons. (My dad was a preacher, you may recall.)
My mother adored him. She took care of him fastidiously — keeping the house clean, cooking the kind of meals he wanted, ironing his shirts just so.
She was his secretary, his housekeeper, his cook, his maid, and his mistress — happily, I might add.
She also was his special music at the end of his sermons, the choir director and pianist when needed, and the mother of his children.
I can remember, when I’d just become a teenager, my father — from the pulpit — saying, “Mrs. Ehrhardt, could you attend to your daughter,” when he saw me whispering to a friend in church.
(Yes, he always referred to my mother as Mrs. Ehrhardt to any member of the congregation. He never mentioned her by first name.)
My younger sister had a much easier time with Dad as she was growing up. I think my parents thought that they’d experimented while raising me but that, when Jess came along, they’d finally got it right.
Jess waited until she as an adult before she tried rebellion.
It’s not that we didn’t love our father. I just didn’t like him at times.
Among other things, he made buying Fathers Day cards difficult. I wanted to be truthful — even with cards — but that was tricky. Then again, Dad was tricky.
I said that to my mother once, and she burst into tears,
“What do you mean tricky?” she said. “He loves you. He’d do anything for you. How can you say that?”
My father said to us one time: “What more could you girls want? I’ve given you more than I ever got.”
What did we want?
Throughout my life, I’ve watched for men to be good fathers. By good, I mean present, involved, kind men who obviously like their children. That’s a good start for fatherhood credentials.
I’ve watched my cousins and my cousins kids be good dads. I’ve seen them fixing tires without grumbling, loading dishwashers, attending skillions of ball games, cheering, hauling, coaching — and I’m impressed.
My friend Gary is a good dad, a better father than a husband, surprisingly more attentive to his kids than to his wife — probably because she’s terribly efficient and has most everything else covered.
He likes to be with his children, laughs at their foibles, and seems pleased with their accomplishments.
My dad died more than 20 years ago. I sometimes talk to him when I drive past the cemetery on the edge of Ramona where he’s buried.
Yesterday they were out mowing Lewis Cemetery and even weed-eating around tombstones. My dad would have appreciated that touch. He always kept a neat yard.
It’s been quite a few years since I labored over an appropriate Fathers Day card, but this year I needed one. I wanted to send a card to a member of my extended family in California.
This card was for a man I really don’t know that well but have watched for years.
He’s married to my son-in-law’s sister. He’s Korean. He’s a doctor. He’s my grandson’s uncle. He’s a father to three college-age kids. And he’s a good dad, in spite of all the stereotypical things you might think you know about the busy life he leads and the various roles he plays.
I’ve known him for more than 25 years but never have had more than brief polite conversations with him. But I’ve seen him in action, facilitating, instigating, gathering, listening, challenging, weaving his extended family together.
It’s Norm, the dad, who gets everyone together to go to the movies. It’s Norm who suggests a cousins’ campout for the kids. It’s Norm who schedules 20 people to go get locked in a room and find their way out eventually — just for fun.
So, on another day in the country, I sent him a Fathers Day card. “Thanks for being such a great Dad and a role model for generations to come.”