My mom shared the content of today’s blog post in a Facebook memory earlier this week.
It is the 2019 Father’s Day tribute to my daddy.
I did not attempt a new writing for him this year. I hope this blog will honor him every day because, as I wrote on Facebook one year ago, the “regular” days and moments are the ones that matter most to me.
(Originally posted to Facebook on June 16, 2019.)
Father’s Day is not automatically an emotional day for me.
I felt the sting of nostalgia as our church honored dads with a roll of Lifesavers candy. My daddy kept Wint-O-Green ones in his dresser drawer. I pilfered them, along with his cinnamon-flavored Certs.
But on the whole this day is OK for me.
Daddy was born on Christmas Day, and he died on Thanksgiving Day. The unexpected truth is that holidays are not hard. I’m actually quite stoic.
The un-holidays, well, those are tricky and there are a lot more of them.
For example, December 14, 2017. Kids to Love, the non-profit where I work, was a flurry of activity that morning as social workers converged on our warehouse to collect Christmas gifts for foster children. Our Tennessee counties had enough boxes and bags to require an 18-wheeler. I hurried to the parking lot to see how I could help and stopped in my tracks when I saw a man, about the age my daddy would have been, standing beside that big rig, wearing a pair of Liberty overalls.
My breath caught and my tears fell and I felt like I was 7-years-old or even 17-years-old, watching my daddy walk in the backdoor of our home wearing his Liberty overalls, covered in coal dust.
So to honor my daddy today, here’s a picture of him wearing his Liberty overalls. This is what sacrifice looks like. He worked six days a week in the damp, dark underground of a coal mine. He never missed a band concert or a football game or an awards ceremony. He was not perfect, but he was present.
In his last days with Alzheimer’s disease daddy couldn’t remember much. He couldn’t remember how to work a TV remote, or count money or button a shirt. But mom says the night before he went in to the hospital (for a procedure he would not recover from) he remembered my brothers and me. Mom says he told her “We’ve got good kids.”
Maybe I’m biased but he does have good kids, and we have him to thank for that.
Happy Father’s Day, Daddy, from your Julie Doll.
“But from everlasting to everlasting, the Lord’s love is with those who fear Him, and his righteousness with their children’s children.”
(Psalm 103:17)
