Thoughts on Father's Day

Father's Day has come and gone again. Since my own dad's passing in 2012, I always find a bittersweet element to this nationwide celebration. Of course I honor my husband, the father of my children, and do my best to help him feel appreciated. Now that all of my children are parents, I honor the fathers of my grandchildren as well. Somehow, it isn't the same without a dad of my own.

So I spend part of each Father's Day remembering my dad. Born in 1922, Dad grew up in a small farming community nestled in a valley of the Gila Mountains. Born on the Arizona side of that valley, he grew up on the New Mexico side, near Silver City. Throughout his life, he loved driving through well-tended fields of productive farmland. He was even more thrilled by the pastoral scenes. Whenever I drive past fields of green grass where Black Angus cattle graze peacefully, I think of my dad, knowing how much he would love that sight.

He gardened throughout his life, also tending fruit trees, berry vines, grapes, and other crops. He and Mom chose homes with a little land around them, so he always had animals to tend. My sibs and I grew up on healthful, organically grown milk, meat, eggs, and produce whose provenance we all knew well, since we had helped to grow it (sometimes, when Dad let us or insisted).

Dad loved horses. As a pre-teen girl with horse-crazy friends, so did I. When I was a young teen, he bought a sweet old mare who gave my sister and me some interesting rides. Then Dad traded Belle in on a young, "proud-cut" gelding who had a little too much spirit for my taste. I rode Star occasionally and my sister liked Star better, but Dad loved him. As a young man, he had ridden on cattle drives. In his early adult life, he had worked for the U.S. Forest Service, often riding in to the fire lines, leading a pack mule that carried additional supplies. A spirited horse was exactly his style.

He was a teacher who had never really wanted to teach, whose students all adored him. He made up fantastic stories that he set in the history of the nation or the world, making the history he taught personal enough that his students could grasp and appreciate it.

Because of his birth in 1922, Dad was the right age to go to war with the Greatest Generation. He joined the Navy and became a sailor who was violently ill whenever at sea. He did better when assigned as a radioman and tail gunner for a small airplane in a smaller air field on an even smaller island in the Pacific. He seldom spoke of his war experience, usually only to say he had never been in combat. When he was in his 70s, he finally began to talk of the side of the war he had seen, including plenty of death and sorrow.

He adored babies. Whenever the family gathered, Dad gravitated toward the little people. Almost every child born in our extended family up to the date of his death has been held, rocked, and sung to sleep by my father. When my own grandchildren cry now, especially that inconsolable cry all babies sometimes manage, I wish for my father to soothe them. I wonder, sometimes, if he might be there.

On this most recent Father's Day, I cooked a special meal for my husband, sent e-cards to all the other fathers in the family, and let them all know I love them and appreciate the fine work they are doing in raising the next generation. But in my private moments, I thought of my dad. I probably always will.

Susan Aylworth is the author of 18 novels currently available as e-books. PARIS IN THE SPRINGTIME and SUNNY'S SUMMER, the first two books in the "Seasons of Destiny" series, are also available in paperback. Book Two chronicles the aftermath of the deadly Camp Fire. She lives in northern California with Roger, her husband of 49 years. She loves hearing from readers. Find her at www.susanaylworth.com, @SusanAylworth, on Pinterest and Instagram, and at www.facebook.com/Susan.Aylworth.Author.

Memories on Father's Day

by Fran McNabb

With Father’s Day next weekend, I couldn’t let the opportunity pass without saying something about our dads.

I want to share a few memories I have of some special men in my life starting with my father. My

dad was from the generation where men left the housework and raising the children to the mother. He was a fisherman, a hard worker who shrimped at night and slept during the day, so my brother and I didn’t see him as much as we would’ve liked. On summer Sundays, however, he’d make sure the boat was clean and he would take the family and our friends out to the islands. Those days made up for all the tip-toeing around the house while he slept. I have wonderful memories of Dad and Mom sitting on his boat overseeing everything and getting the food ready (homemade fried chicken and potato salad) as the children swam and played.

I realized that all men did not leave the childrearing up to the mother alone. I spent many days with one of my aunts and uncle. It was here at their home that I realized men actually helped take care of the little ones. When he was home, my Uncle Jimmy helped with the everyday tasks of raising their children. I’m sure throughout the ages men have done that, but it never occurred to me until I watched my uncle. He’s no longer with us, but when I think about him today I think about those small moments between him and his children that probably went unnoticed to anyone else.

Today it takes two to raise children. My eldest son took on the responsibilities of helping with his one baby from the moment they brought him home. Both of my sons helped to raise their sons and helped around the house. Does it make men any less of a man to do things like change diapers, toss a ball to his son, or mop a floor or iron a shirt? Absolutely not. I think it makes a man more of a man.

And I can’t end this without mentioning my husband. Living with someone for almost forty-seven years and raising two sons together make for some wonderful memories, but it’s the memories of him spending time with our boys that bring me the most joy today. Maybe our sons learned from him because today all my men cook and press their clothes and help around the house. (Yes, I do iron as well. In fact, I love to iron.)

Happy Father’s Day to all the men in your life. If you have a special memory to share, I’d love for you to comment so we can all enjoy it.

FRAN MCNABB lives with her husband on a quiet harbor bayou along the Gulf Coast. She always says that her fictional heroes all have a little bit of her husband in them. Now she can say that since her sons are grown, they too have contributed to the heroic qualities in her novels. Check out her tender romances on her website www.FranMcNabb.com  or contact her at mcnabbf@bellsouth.net. She loves to hear from her readers. 

What My Dad Taught Me

In a few weeks, I will be celebrating my father’s 106th birthday. I bake a cake because he always wanted cake for desert and was heard often to ask, “What, no cake?” at the end of a family dinner.

One of my first memories is of waking from a nightmare and crawling into my parents’ bed, regaling my father with a detailed description of the house I wanted. Although he had to rise at dawn to drive to the next town to work as a carpenter until after sundown, he listened, questioned and made suggestions for my dream house until I fell back to sleep and woke in my own bed in the morning, 

certain and secure the nightmare would not scare me again.

My father’s love of cake was especially intense for Strawberry Shortcake. The year I turned five, I was allowed the honor of presenting my mother’s famous strawberry, whipped cream and Bisquick biscuit layered cake, carrying it from the kitchen to the dining room. My proud entry, the smile and pride on my father’s face was heart-swelling and … I tripped.

Falling face first into his birthday cake, already crying my heart out, are all I clearly remember of my shameful moment.  Though there was undoubtedly chaos for a moment after the disaster, laughter and a clean-up of me and the floor, I can only imagine mother served another, different cake and my dad ate it with pleasure.

In the following year, my father left our home to find better work to feed his family. When he had a good job with a small construction firm and a place for us to live, my mother drove across the country with me, my younger sister and older brother—newly licensed to drive. When we arrived in San Francisco, I was shocked to be told I’d been enrolled in school and that would start two weeks after my father’s birthday.

But I couldn’t read!

Explaining to my father I was determined not to go to school, not until I learned reading, he sat me down with a book—title forgotten—to teach me how to do this marvelous thing.

My dad never let a teaching opportunity go by without taking advantage. Road trips were chances to have spelling Bees and I could always, by the time we reached our destination, spell the longest word in the English language or the medical term for a recently discovered cure for a condition. We always stopped at roadside attractions such as dinosaur exhibits or local museums and trading posts.

When my younger sister had trouble learning the alphabet, my father spent his very few leisure hours teaching her the letters on a standing chalkboard and magnetic easel we had received as a Christmas present. She thought of it as a punishment but I always saw his efforts as a gift and made an effort to do the same for my children.

My father worked every weekend and evening to repair properties my parents had bought to build a rental property business. They eventually owned several properties and were able to buy their own house.

At this same time, my father discovered square dancing as a favorite leisure activity. My sister and I were too young to be left at home at night or over their weekend Hoedowns so we learned “do-si-do (dosado)” and “Allemande left” with the adult dancers. From square dancing, he moved on to round dancing. He and I practiced, when my mom as presiding over her PTA meetings, in our living room. 

Between them, my parents ran a successful home rental business, while my dad still worked as a carpenter and my mom ran the household and made cakes.

At the age of 53, cancer fatally struck my father. He survived for only six months. My mother had to practice giving him morphine by repeatedly stabbing a syringe into an orange. He was in so much pain, he begged to die but he still had enough energy and commitment to my well-being to tell me to stand up straight.

This year, my dad has been gone for as many years as he lived. I have honored his birthday with my husband and sons—who are all so much like him—with cake and ice cream. And this year, I will make a Strawberry Shortcake but I will give my daughter-in-law the honor of carrying it to the table.

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