In 1992, Father’s Day was on Sunday, June 21st and then I was here too. In the world. Struggling to open my eyes in St. Mary’s. Nana told me that’s when she first saw me. I was ready to be born, two weeks early, and I was ready to open my eyes. Let’s go.
My dad was working when my mom went into labor — again, I was early, ready, let’s go — and Nana told me for the first time today that he was in Iowa when he got the call. Is that where this family aversion (or is it just my dad and me?) to Iowa began? Because it almost kept us apart?
There is an easy quip when you’re born on Father’s Day that I was the gift. Of course, it was me who was really given a gift that day twenty-eight years ago, to be born into a family, and to a father, who taught me to love without blinking and who taught me to be myself without questioning that I would be loved wholly in return.
For all my unlearning that I do when I talk about society’s miseducation, I don’t unlearn anything from him. How could I? Why would I? The work ethic and generosity and compassion. And honestly, the complete lack of traditional gender roles in my family are part of the reason it’s been so jarring (and angering) to see toxic masculinity in the world, when all I saw were parents who both worked, both made dinner, both cleaned, both did laundry, both worked the snowblower up and down the driveway when I was too much of a bratty teen to offer to help.
As I plan to be home in a few weeks (for good, it’s unreal still) I promise myself to make up for it. What’s a little work in the snow, after all, compared to a lifetime of selfless love from my dad?
And I’m also looking forward to watching Battlestar Galactica with him or shadowing his rewatch of Star Trek episodes or splitting a beer out on the deck or the other thousand ways I get to be a part of my dad’s (and my mom’s) every day.
It’ll be another six years before my birthday and Father’s day overlap, but I’m proud to share today with him. Love you, Dad.
With Love,
Natalie