Father's Day

It seems I’m always running late. Late to drop off the kids in the morning, late for work, late to marry, late to have kids at all. This is such a chronic condition that Owen & Nora think our morning going-to-school song is the Rabbit’s song from Alice in Wonderland.

I'm late, I'm late for a very important date.
No time to say hello, good-bye
I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!

And so I’m late with this father’s day wish. Dad, sorry I didn’t send a card. Sorry I didn’t call. Those lapses don’t mean you haven’t been on my mind.

I’ve been feeling very grateful lately, about my life in general and about our relationship in particular. I know I haven’t always felt this way. After so many years of estrangement, I’m thankful to have you in my life again in such a positive way.

After you and mom divorced, I tended to see people as black hats or white hats. I wasn’t helped or encouraged to understand the grays, and I was too young to appreciate the complexity of life and of the relationships of adults. And because there was the blankness of no information, I filled it up with my own ideas and apportioned blame. In my mind, this led to our estrangement and the estrangement became a habit that just felt too big and complex and uncomfortable to do anything about.

When I started my own family, I felt the opportunity for healing present itself. Something about watching you be such a loving grandparent to the little person around whom my world revolved flipped a switch in my mind and my heart. I was able to accept you for who you had become and not who I remembered you to be. And I feel your acceptance of who I have become, and your respect for how I live my life and parent my children.

Our new adult relationship has been one of the greatest gifts in my life, and I’m intensely grateful that I am present and open enough to accept it. Lately, I think a lot about how to recognize and accept grace. Grace as an opportunity to look at something – or someone – in a different way. Grace as an opportunity for growth. Little grace as in finding the perfect parking spot with time on the meter outside my favorite coffee shop. Big grace as in moments of near-perfect connection with my kids. The grace of being able to accept the gift of love, as imperfect and beautiful as the giver. The grace of discovering, in my middle years, the joy and comfort of what it means to be someone’s beloved daughter. The grace of finding one another again.

The past no longer holds me the way it used to. The sweetest gift I give myself is permission to let go and move on. There are no black hats. There are no white hats. There is only gray, and it’s the most beautiful of colors.

I love you, Dad. Happy Father’s Day.