Father’s Day

There’s alot I can say on this day. So much. June is always the month

where I miss my own father the most. Where I feel his void the

greatest, and when I, on the cusp of adding another year to my life,

want to turn to him and say “hey, am I doing okay?”.

So much to say. Instead of saying things, I thought I’d just be

thankful this year. I have been lucky enough, blessed enough, to have

had the most inspirational, stubborn father who believed in his family

more than anything, even when we pissed him off. heh. The gentlest, yet

firm when needed, paternal unit.

he used to say, that whenever we would fight, whenever he and my mum

would disagree, that the next morning, on rising, it wouldn’t

matter…that we’d still ‘smell like honey’ to him. That constant love

given, those 2am teas, the talks over the table.

When I was very little, I remember thinking my dad was very tall. very

strong. When I was a teenager, I remember thinking my dad was always in

my way. When I grew a little, I remember always knowing my dad was

always beside me, no matter what happened. The truth is, he’s always

been beside me – from walking next to the donkey at The Oaks, when he

wasn’t riding horses himself, to sitting next to me in the principal’s

office, to signing away his surety into my juvenile hands, to holding

my hand on the couch when I was in labour.

Always beside me.

Then I look at the father figures in my life.

My brother. Father to two, uncle to my daughter, always loving, always

working hard at everything. Always doing his best. Once, when I was

needed at work, and Cam was ill, he looked after her for me. Once, when

I was a teenager and in the middle of a dodgy situation I didn’t even

know I was in, he got me out. Once, when I was just verging on the

teens, I sprained my ankle. He carried me into the house, crying like a

baby. My brother, and yeah, we’re siblings, dudes, so of course we have

differences, I always feel, is the greatest tribute to our father any

of us could make. His constant love for his family, that drives him,

and holds us together, is unwavered by life. Proof of that lies in how

he loves his daughters, his wife and puts his heart into everything he

does. Yes, that includes rocking out, air-guitaring and laughing at my

shoes.

Always beside me. Always beside his family.

Cameron’s dad. My lifelong best friend, my confidante for every

formative day and deed of my life. I could write you three books on

him. But, he is Cameron’s father, first and foremost. How weird that

really is, I suppose, for me. From being the number one person in my

life, above all, to being the number one person for someone else. And

that someone else being the number one person in my life. A strange and

idiosyncratic circle. That said, his fatherhood, flung upon our lives

like a wayward balloon, is constant. Life is life, but his love for his

daughter exists even when he cannot see it himself. To see her eyes

light up for him, to listen to them talk in their own, special language

to each other, to watch them play, to the days when I used to watch

them sleep. How, four years on, when he picks her up and she nestles

her head into his shoulder, and the world is at peace. The look on his

face when she entered the world is the same look he has when he picks

her up for his weekends. Always constant love. In his own, particular way I
battle to understand.

Always beside Cameron.

My point? My point is simple. The father figures in my life, have loved

me, hated me, questioned me but always supported me. What makes a great

father? I don’t know, I’m not a father and I can’t judge. But, what I

do know, is that I am surrounded by brilliant, constant examples.

So, today, I say, Thank you.

Miss you Dadadadadad.