Today is my first Father’s Day without a father.

It kind of hit me suddenly when I woke up next to my husband, wishing him congrats on his own 28-plus years in the Father’s Day club.

My brain has gone back and forth all morning, thinking of my own experiences with my dad, and smiling at all the wonderful moments my Tim has shared with our kids and the memories they have.

Any holiday we celebrate can invoke different emotions depending on our life experiences.

I think of those who have never had a dad or father figure of any kind and the potential sadness or bitterness they might feel.

Hallmark and Shoebox were nearing empty slots of cards for this single-day celebration when I happened to walk through CVS yesterday.

Ironically, my next stop at the local ACE Hardware store was deadly quiet… when it had been popping with activity on Mother’s Day weekend on the “girly gift shop” side.

“Have we forgotten to celebrate the dads of this world that have stepped up to the task?”

Who have been mentors and heroes. Real men and husbands that model positive roles for masculinity in a world that tends to crave their existence, yet beat them up for living up to the role.

My relationship with my father while growing up was a fickle thing.

My earliest childhood memories involve me soaring the skies with my dad and literally discovering the world from a 10,000-foot view.

Nothing gave me greater joy than tagging along with him on flights in Cessnas, Otters, Beavers, and being the grease monkey at the airport hangar.

He taught me survivalist skills for bush life in northern Canada, how to drive a stick, change a tire, make Yorkshire pudding from scratch, and how to cheat at Monopoly.

And yet, for many and most of my formative years, I resented him for the career he chose and the job that took him away for months at a time.

“With Dad missing seven of my birthdays in a row, sometimes gone for seven months at a stretch…”

He lost a lot of “parental clout and authority” when he did return for short bouts of time.

To me, he became powerless, uncaring, and physically and emotionally absent.

I turned to my grandfather for his paternal support in those times.

Grandpa May’s stern, gruff demeanor was a persona well known throughout the town I grew up in.

He oozed tough “WW2 veteran” and wrapped his naturally “rough around the edges” persona, along with his undiagnosed bipolar disorder, into a unique, infamous character.

Those were the two men in my life.

My relationship with my father never really blossomed until I was in my early 40s and my mom passed.

Dad moved close to me and developed a relationship with my kids and my family, and during that time I grew to know and understand him as a person other than father.

In an unspoken way, he tried to make up for lost time, lost years, and many things unsaid.

“This winter, when he passed, I felt like I truly understood him.”

His love for me was never absent.

Circumstances. Career. Generational attitudes. Learned and unlearned parenting skills.

And most of all… human imperfection.

They all influence our ability to love our children in an impossibly perfect way.

A childhood of babysitting little demon children rendered me convinced that birthing and raising my own offspring was out of the question.

So when you marry someone that is your prince charming, “knight in shining armor,” and your soulmate, and you have the mandatory discussion about having children…

You better be on the same page.

We weren’t.

Not at first.

Tim mostly blew it off, and I was content to make it through our 20s busy with schooling and beginning busy careers that required us to care for OTHERS at 2 a.m. and not a personally owned baby.

It took some deep talks, philosophical discussions on selflessness, and the meaning of our own creation for me to slowly bend to his reasons for kids.

It seems like a shameful thing to admit once you have your own children…

But now that we have two of the most amazing humans in the world, I wish I had multiples MORE of my kids.

(Well… maybe a few more. My pelvis is kind of destroyed from the couple of jobs I had to do, lol.)

Having kids is always a cycle of ups and downs. Seasons where you, as a parent, are the BEST and occasionally the WORST in your kids’ life, depending on their age or the conflict of the week.

I look back at photos and videos of time with our kids and am so grateful that Tim knew that “quantity” was just as important as “quality” time.

He made a point to connect with each of our children in ways that were meaningful to them.

He taught them to suck it up when I was too motherly.

He taught them to play hard—to do wild and crazy sports that pushed their sense of comfort and safety, and taught them courage, failure, and persistence were life skills.

Sometimes weekend plans got foiled, and our kids learned what work commitment meant.

When being “on call” was part of the job description and inconvenient things like delivering someone’s untimely baby affected their weekend boating time at the lake…

“Our kids learned that life doesn’t always bend around our plans.”

Our kids have a dad that cried with them at Marley and Me and taught them tenderness and compassion are manly.

Our kids have a parent who disciplined them with a loving yet strong hand that taught them to be kind, respectful, polite adults.

Our kids have a dad who challenged their thoughts and decisions to help them critically think through the stupid…

And wisely make the big life choices.

A father’s job isn’t just to protect his children from the world—it’s to prepare them for it.

Our kids have a father who taught them he cared for their safety by teaching them to find every exit in any building they enter in case ANY dangerous situation arises requiring them to flee.

Our kids saw a dad model how a husband loves his wife and works through marital ups and downs, resolves arguments, honors commitment, and makes his wife and marriage a priority instead of letting the children run the show.

Kids are part of the family, but not the cruise directors.

Our kids are wonderful adults living independent lives thanks to a Father who let them go, even when you want to hang onto them forever…

“Because that’s what LOVE does.”

I am forever grateful for Fathers who are working as best as they can to raise wonderful kids into amazing adults.

Let’s remember to celebrate, thank, and recognize those true men we encounter daily who embody what this world and society is CRAVING right now!!!

The definition of a REAL MAN…

And yep, he comes with a penis and two testicles straight from the great Creator!

Thanks Fathers and MEN!! We need you!