Father’s Day

by The Right Reverend Dean E. Wolfe on June 16, 2023

As Father’s Day approaches, I find myself thinking more about my own father. Bill, as everyone called him, died 17 years ago this month. To me his death feels like it happened yesterday. My father and I were very close and, when he died, I felt as though the whole world came to a complete stop.

Growing up, I imagined everyone had a relationship with their father like the one I enjoyed with mine. It was the reality I knew and so I assumed it must be everyone else’s reality as well. Over the years I came to understand the gift I had been given. I realized my father’s love was more precious (and far rarer) than I had first imagined. I also came to understand that the complicated relationship my father had with his father was part of his motivation to create a great relationship with me. There was nothing accidental about our closeness. My father worked at it.

Of course, I realize Father’s Day is a mixed bag for some. The toxic relationships some fathers have with their children makes this a holiday a few prefer to skip. For others, not having a son or daughter makes any kind of Father’s Day celebration bittersweet. There is a profound sense of loss in what might have been but was not. Still, there’s something to Father’s Day (and Mother’s Day as well) which draws the attention of the spiritually minded. The Ten Commandments demand we honor our mothers and fathers and our remembrance of them, the good, the bad, and the ugly, is a powerful way of honoring their lives.

When I was younger, I thought all fathers possessed super-human powers. I believed all fathers were brave and strong and extraordinarily gifted. They all needed to know how to ride a bike, start a fire, train a dog, and manage a grill full of hamburgers and hot dogs. My dad could level a slab of concrete, frame a house, fix a watch, change the sparkplugs in a car, refinish antique furniture and teach his son how to catch a football, ride a bike, and drive a truck with a standard transmission.

As I grew older and became a father myself, I came to appreciate the difficulties fathers (and, of course, mothers) must overcome in order to express those superhuman traits! I came to appreciate the perseverance which was required. My father was a very human being. He lost his temper easily and, like many of the men of his time, struggled with the equality of women and people of other races. He expected great things from his son and all I can say in his defense is that he was always tougher on himself than he ever was on me. He had his own issues to overcome, including a difficult childhood growing up in the midst of the Great Depression with alcoholic parents. His only sister was killed in a tragic incident of domestic violence and, no matter how hard he tried, I don’t believe my father ever overcame the feeling that he just didn’t measure up. He worked nights and weekends (in addition to the long hours he put in on the factory floor at National Cash Register) to provide for his family. He believed deeply in God’s righteous judgements, but he never fully trusted in God’s grace or mercy.

On a weekend like this I miss him terribly. I’d like to have a beer with him while we cook hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill. I’d like to get his opinion on the parts of life which still perplex me. I know how much we would enjoy talking about his only grandson. On this Father’s Day weekend, I take great comfort in the Christian promise of eternal life and I look forward to that day when we will all see one another, not from a distant shore, but finally face to face.

I’ve always appreciated this prayer which was given to me by the Reverend Gail Greenwell, a gifted priest I worked with in the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas.