When my parents married in the fall of 1955, there were many among my mother’s friends who expected the union to be short-lived.  My father simply didn’t look like the marrying kind.  He was boyfriend, or perhaps movie star material, but not husband material, they said.  He was not the kind to be faithful, they warned her.  He would move on.  He wasn’t the type to settle down.  It seemed less than likely that fatherhood would be in his aspirations.

 

That was fifty-eight years ago.  Mama and Daddy have stuck together through better and worse, richer and poorer, through sickness and health.  They’re a team.  I think it’s safe to say that the critics were dead wrong.

 

Had it been up to my mother, my parents might have postponed the whole childbearing thing indefinitely.  After six years of marriage, the leanest days, when dinner might mean a shared can of ravioli, were behind them, but they were far from financially stable.  No matter what, though, Daddy wanted a baby.  He wanted a little girl.  And when I arrived, he loved me to distraction.  So much so, that, for a while, he avoided work.  This made for a stretch of marital “worse,” one that was worked out in due course.

 

I find it hard to imagine a more devoted father or grandfather.  There may be no one on earth who celebrates my triumphs, or suffers my heartaches, to the degree that my father does.  He feels the same way about my daughter.  Her joys are his joys, her trials are his trials.  There is no battle he would not wage for us, should it be necessary. We know, without a doubt, that he stands resolutely, enthusiastically, steadfastly, in our corner.  His  unwavering love is a gift that adds immeasurable warmth and color to our lives.  Happy Father’s Day, Daddy! 

                                                             

                                                                

(For more about my father and the other father figures in my life, see posts from October 2011 and June 2012.)