My Father

Unfortunately a significant portion of my circle of friends overlap with a group of folks that were raised, or lack thereof, by bad fathers and Father's Day brings them seldom less than resentment. While I harbor all of my own concerns and emotions regarding my biological parents, I will say that I could not have been taken in and adopted by a better man than my father.

There are men in this world that are able to do many things in their lifetime but I greatly doubt than any man could be a better father to me than mine is. I have lived a very seemingly, quickly paced 34 years and have yet to meet a man who is more fair than he is.

Fair. Yes, that is the adjective I describe him with because not only does he do 'fair' better than anyone else, but it is 'fair' that we need more of today. There are fathers that deliver 'tough love' and fathers that bend too easily and fairness is the perfect balance between the two. My father never maliciously struck me but there were rare physical and disciplinary actions taken that I recognize as necessary. I was never starved for attention but was encouraged to earn the respect that I wanted to deserve. Lastly, my father sacrificed much of the ceiling of his own career for the benefit of his family and children.

My moral compass was not instilled in me by my Creator. I did not deduct a sense of what is right and wrong from a glorified book. My sense of morality is a learned behavior from what I have experienced but the comprehension of that begins with what we are taught and I must attribute much of that foundation to my father.

This also sets a high bar for how I raise my son. As I've stated before, our job as parents is to condition our children to be better human beings than we are; my work is cut out for me. 

I have heard the cliche that men marry a woman who is much like their mother and they emulate their fathers. I could only be so lucky to one day demonstrate the love, understanding and patience of that man. I have less than forty years based on our age difference to exercise abilities such as that yet I feel I need several lifetimes to get there.