Tag Archive for: Father’s Day

What Love Really Means

/in /by

 

Writer, humanist,

          dog-mom, horse servant and cat-slave,

       Lover of solitude

          and the company of good friends,

        new places, new ideas

           and old wisdom.

The answer to what love is has defied the best efforts of philosophers and poets, yet we know it when we see it, as these keen observations from children prove. 

“Karl, age 5: ‘Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.’ 

Billy, who is 4, had to think about it, but decided, ‘When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth.’

And Rebecca observed, ‘When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So, my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.’”

And Teresa (TK) age. . . never mind . . . said, ‘Daddy is love–you can crawl onto his lap, and he will read the comics in the newspaper for you; you can crawl on his shoulders, and he will flip you over and over again! You can know you will always have a place to go if you need it; he will always be there.’

Thank you, Papa for everything and always. I love you . . . and that’s the most important thing.
T.K.Thorne is a retired police captain who writes Books, which, like this blog, go wherever her curiosity and imagination take her.  More at TKThorne.com

Men Who Take on Other Men’s Children

/in /by
My stepfather coaches my little brother’s team
Men Who Take on Other Men’s Children by Linda Rodriguez (originally published in June 2015)


When
I look back on my life, I realize I’ve been lucky enough to be
closely involved with three men who had the ability to take on
children who weren’t their own genetic children and love and care
for them as fathers. It will be Father’s Day soon, and I want to
say a word or two about these kinds of unsung heroes.
My
birth father was a brutal, unpredictable man. I suspect he would now
be diagnosed as a clinical sociopath. After my parents’ scandalous,
highly contentious divorce and all of the violent, ugly fallout
afterward, my mother settled in a small college town in Kansas and
met a quiet man she married when I was fifteen.
My
stepfather immediately tried to be a good father to me, which meant,
among other things, setting limits and being protective. My birth
parents had both been irresponsible and sometimes dangerous children,
so from my earliest memories I was the pseudo-adult in the house, the
one who worried about all my younger siblings and tried to protect
them and care for them so they could have as normal a childhood as
possible. No one had ever looked after me or tried to take care of
me, so I resented my new stepfather’s efforts tremendously.
As
the next few years went by and I observed my stepfather’s treatment
of my younger siblings, for whom I still felt so responsible although
I’d left home at sixteen, I warmed to him. He was doing his best to
be a real dad to them, taking them camping and fishing, making them
toys, coaching Little League teams, etc. In time, like my younger
siblings, I came to call him Dad. When I gave my parents their first
grandchildren, he was a doting grandfather, and when he finally died,
he died in my sister’s and my arms with all my brothers and the
grandchildren around his bed.
At
the time I married my late first husband, I already had a baby, whose
father had died. My late first husband loved my oldest as much as
either of the two children we had together, and that was one of the
things I loved about him, that capacity to open his heart to a child
who wasn’t his own genetically just as much as to those who were.
Later
when I was a single mother of two teenagers in the final years of
high school and my youngest was only four years old, I met and
married a man who’d never been married or had children. He had
enough sense not to try to be a father to my teens, who would have
only resented him for it, but he loved and raised my youngest as his
own. This gentle, totally urban intellectual did the zoo safari, even
though he was embarrassed that everyone else had to help him put up
the huge tent he’d rented, and when our little one left the tent
open to the depredations of peacocks and collapsed the whole tent on
his stepfather when they were packing up to leave, he was so kind
that he earned a hand-printed, hand-drawn certificate of membership
in “The Loyal Order of Peacock Fathers.” My youngest and my
husband to this day have a close, loving father-son relationship, and
because he was so patient, he and my older two children have a warm
relationship as well.
My
sister has two sons. One father is a deadbeat, missing in action
because he’s never wanted to be financially responsible for his
child after the divorce (just as he hadn’t for all of the other
children he had that my sister didn’t know about when they
married). The father of the youngest paid support but simply refused
to see his own son. For these boys, my current husband has been a
father-figure. The younger one clung to my husband and waited eagerly
for our visits and his to us. My husband used to shake his head on
the way home and wonder at the idiocy of the men who refused to have
any contact with their gifted, charming boys. At Christmastime, these
two nephews, now grown, delight in finding eccentric books and other
gifts that will please my husband, often keeping an eye out for them
all year.
I’ve
seen firsthand what a difference men like this can and do make in the
lives of children whose fathers are gone, sometimes dead, sometimes
by choice. So here’s a toast to the men who take on other men’s
offspring and give them love and a true father’s care, even when it
isn’t easy, even when those other men have left emotional damage
behind. To Dad, to Michael, to Ben, and to all of the other men out
there like them, you are the true salt of the earth!

Men Who Take on Other Men’s Children

/in /by
by
Linda Rodriguez
My stepfather coaches my little brother’s team
When
I look back on my life, I realize I’ve been lucky enough to be
closely involved with three men who had the ability to take on
children who weren’t their own genetic children and love and care
for them as fathers. It will be Father’s Day soon, and I want to
say a word or two about these kinds of unsung heroes.
My
birth father was a brutal, unpredictable man. I suspect he would now
be diagnosed as a clinical sociopath. After my parents’ scandalous,
highly contentious divorce and all of the violent, ugly fallout
afterward, my mother settled in a small college town in Kansas and
met a quiet man she married when I was fifteen.
My
stepfather immediately tried to be a good father to me, which meant,
among other things, setting limits and being protective. My birth
parents had both been irresponsible and sometimes dangerous children,
so from my earliest memories I was the pseudo-adult in the house, the
one who worried about all my younger siblings and tried to protect
them and care for them so they could have as normal a childhood as
possible. No one had ever looked after me or tried to take care of
me, so I resented my new stepfather’s efforts tremendously.
As
the next few years went by and I observed my stepfather’s treatment
of my younger siblings, for whom I still felt so responsible although
I’d left home at sixteen, I warmed to him. He was doing his best to
be a real dad to them, taking them camping and fishing, making them
toys, coaching Little League teams, etc. In time, like my younger
siblings, I came to call him Dad. When I gave my parents their first
grandchildren, he was a doting grandfather, and when he finally died,
he died in my sister’s and my arms with all my brothers and the
grandchildren around his bed.
At
the time I married my late first husband, I already had a baby, whose
father had died. My late first husband loved my oldest as much as
either of the two children we had together, and that was one of the
things I loved about him, that capacity to open his heart to a child
who wasn’t his own genetically just as much as to those who were.
Later
when I was a single mother of two teenagers in the final years of
high school and my youngest was only four years old, I met and
married a man who’d never been married or had children. He had
enough sense not to try to be a father to my teens, who would have
only resented him for it, but he loved and raised my youngest as his
own. This gentle, totally urban intellectual did the zoo safari, even
though he was embarrassed that everyone else had to help him put up
the huge tent he’d rented, and when our little one left the tent
open to the depredations of peacocks and collapsed the whole tent on
his stepfather when they were packing up to leave, he was so kind
that he earned a hand-printed, hand-drawn certificate of membership
in “The Loyal Order of Peacock Fathers.” My youngest and my
husband to this day have a close, loving father-son relationship, and
because he was so patient, he and my older two children have a warm
relationship as well.
My
sister has two sons. One father is a deadbeat, missing in action
because he’s never wanted to be financially responsible for his
child after the divorce (just as he hadn’t for all of the other
children he had that my sister didn’t know about when they
married). The father of the youngest paid support but simply refused
to see his own son. For these boys, my current husband has been a
father-figure. The younger one clung to my husband and waited eagerly
for our visits and his to us. My husband used to shake his head on
the way home and wonder at the idiocy of the men who refused to have
any contact with their gifted, charming boys. At Christmastime, these
two nephews, now grown, delight in finding eccentric books and other
gifts that will please my husband, often keeping an eye out for them
all year.
I’ve
seen firsthand what a difference men like this can and do make in the
lives of children whose fathers are gone, sometimes dead, sometimes
by choice. So here’s a toast to the men who take on other men’s
offspring and give them love and a true father’s care, even when it
isn’t easy, even when those other men have left emotional damage
behind. To Dad, to Michael, to Ben, and to all of the other men out
there like them, you are the true salt of the earth!


(This post is a revisitation of one Linda wrote for this blog several years ago.)

Linda Rodriguez’s Plotting the
Character-Driven Novel, based on her popular workshop, and The
World Is One Place: Native American Poets Visit the Middle East,
an anthology she co-edited, are her newest books. Every Family
Doubt, her fourth mystery novel featuring Cherokee campus police
chief, Skeet Bannion, will appear in autumn, 2017. Her three earlier
Skeet novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust,
and Every Last Secret—and
her books of poetry—Skin Hunger
and Heart’s Migration—have
received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s
Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International
Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices
& Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and
Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good
Neighbor,” published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has
been optioned for film.

Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP
Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter
of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers
Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International
Thriller Writers, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and
Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. Visit her at
http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com

Men Who Take on Other Men’s Children

/in /by
by Linda Rodriguez
My stepfather coaching my little brother’s Litlle League team

When I look back on my life, I realize I’ve been lucky
enough to be closely involved with three men who had the ability to take on
children who weren’t their own genetic children and love and care for them as
fathers. It will be Father’s Day soon, and I want to say a word or two about
these kinds of unsung heroes.


My birth father was a brutal, unpredictable man. I suspect
he would now be diagnosed as a clinical sociopath. After my parents’
scandalous, highly contentious divorce and all of the violent, ugly fallout
afterward, my mother settled in a small college town in Kansas and met a quiet
man she married when I was fifteen.


My stepfather immediately tried to be a good father to me,
which meant, among other things, setting limits and being protective. My birth
parents had both been irresponsible and sometimes dangerous children, so from
my earliest memories I was the pseudo-adult in the house, the one who worried
about all my younger siblings and tried to protect them and care for them so they
could have as normal a childhood as possible. No one had ever looked after me
or tried to take care of me, so I resented my new stepfather’s efforts
tremendously.


As the next few years went by and I observed my stepfather’s
treatment of my younger siblings, for whom I still felt so responsible although
I’d left home at sixteen, I warmed to him. He was doing his best to be a real dad
to them, taking them camping and fishing, making them toys, coaching Little
League teams, etc. In time, like my younger siblings, I came to call him Dad.
When I gave my parents their first grandchildren, he was a doting grandfather,
and when he finally died, he died in my sister’s and my arms with all my
brothers and the grandchildren around his bed.


At the time I married my late first husband, I already had a
baby, whose father had died. My late first husband loved my oldest as much as
either of the two children we had together, and that was one of the things I
loved about him, that capacity to open his heart to a child who wasn’t his own genetically
just as much as to those who were.


Later when I was a single mother of two teenagers in the
final years of high school and my youngest was only four years old, I met and
married a man who’d never been married or had children. He had enough sense not
to try to be a father to my teens, who would have only resented him for it, but
he loved and raised my youngest as his own. This gentle, totally urban
intellectual did the zoo safari, even though he was embarrassed that everyone
else had to help him put up the huge tent he’d rented, and when our little one
left the tent open to the depredations of peacocks and collapsed the whole tent
on his stepfather when they were packing up to leave, he was so kind that he
earned a hand-printed, hand-drawn certificate of membership in “The Loyal Order
of Peacock Fathers.” My youngest and my husband to this day have a close,
loving father-son relationship, and because he was so patient, he and my older
two children have a warm relationship as well.


My sister has two sons. One father is a deadbeat, missing in
action because he’s never wanted to be financially responsible for his child
after the divorce (just as he hadn’t for all of the other children he had that
my sister didn’t know about when they married). The father of the youngest paid
support but simply refused to see his own son. For these boys, my current
husband has been a father-figure. The younger one clung to my husband and
waited eagerly for our visits and his to us. My husband used to shake his head
on the way home and wonder at the idiocy of the men who refused to have any
contact with their gifted, charming boys. At Christmastime, these two nephews,
now grown, delight in finding eccentric books and other gifts that will please
my husband, often keeping an eye out for them all year.


I’ve seen firsthand what a difference men like this can and
do make in the lives of children whose fathers are gone, sometimes dead,
sometimes by choice. So here’s a toast to the men who take on other men’s
offspring and give them love and a true father’s care, even when it isn’t easy,
even when those other men have left emotional damage behind. To Dad, to
Michael, to Ben, and to all of the other men out there like them, you are the
true salt of the earth!

Linda Rodriguez’s third Skeet Bannion novel, Every Hidden Fear, was a selection of
the Las Comadres National Latino Book Club and a Latina Book Club Best Book for
2014. Her second Skeet mystery, Every
Broken Trust, was a selection of Las Comadres National Latino Book Club, International
Latino Book Award, and a finalist for the Premio Aztlan Literary Prize. Her
first Skeet novel, Every Last Secret,
won the St. Martin’s/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel
Competition and an International Latino Book Award. Her short story, “The Good
Neighbor,” has been optioned for film. Find her on Twitter as @rodriguez_linda,
on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LindaRodriguezWrites,
and on her blog http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com.

 
REPLIES TO COMMENTS (because Blogger still hates me):

Thank you, Pam!

I Love You Dad

/in /by


I should have written something for Mother’s Day because I really adored my mother, the original Evelyn. She was smart, feisty, independent, hysterically funny, and the original feminist. So Mom, I owe you a blog.

But next Sunday is Father’s Day. The kids and I will celebrate the wonderful Dad that my husband indeed is. But I want to take a moment to honor Carol, my father. He died much too young. He’s been gone more years than we had together. And yet, that bedrock of love he gave me as a kid accounts for much of the person I am today.

First, the name. He spent his life explaining it because Carol is usually reserved for girls. But the family lore is that it was supposed to be Carl, the hospital got it wrong, and my immigrant grandparents didn’t want to argue with authority. So Carol it was.

He was intelligent, kind, gentle, generous, good looking, with a twinkle in his eye and a sense of humor that often saved the moment (especially for an over-dramatic teenage girl). It was Dad who took me to the library every week. He’d get a stack of books (always including a couple of mysteries!), while I carefully picked out my own selection. He traveled for business, probably three weeks out of every month, but never missed a recital, a holiday, or birthday.

We weren’t poor, but money was usually tight. Dad was a product of the Depression and for him, spending money was always a gut-wrenching experience. When I was in college, I begged to go overseas to a summer program at Oxford University. The cost was prohibitive, but his hesitation, I think, was primarily because he would miss me. Still, my heart was set on a summer in England and he reluctantly agreed. I bought my cheap charter plane ticket and headed off. Within two weeks, I was back home. I’d been in a motorcycle accident (don’t ask, I was just incredibly stupid). I’d lost a few teeth, my face was banged up, I looked a mess. But once Dad had been assured by my doctor that I was okay, he paid for a full-fare ticket for me to return to Oxford. “You have to go back,” he insisted. He didn’t want me to be scared to travel or to miss this unique opportunity. It was a magical summer, despite the temporary bite plate!

Now that I’m a parent, I realize how terrifying it must have been for him to let me go. Not to mention how hard it must have been to pay for that expensive plane ticket. But Dad knew what I needed, even if I didn’t.

From him, I learned parenting lessons, long before I had kids. He never spanked me (Mom took a swipe or two), but Dad just looked disappointed when I misbehaved and that would be enough. He said spanking just meant that he was bigger than me, not necessarily that he was right. He taught me to always tell the people you love that you love them – never assume they know. By his example, I learned what a real father should be and I wanted that (and got it) for my own children.

This Sunday, my husband will laugh at the funny cards his kids have given him, smile at the thoughtful gifts they’ve brought, and mostly, just revel in the company of his children. Carol won’t be here, but I’ll hear him in the laughter of his grandchildren. Love you Dad.

Marian, the Northern half of Evelyn David