Father's Day

I've never given much weight to Father's Day or Mother's Day--Hallmark Card Holidays as far as I can tell. But in my childhood, people wore carnations on both days to church, red if your Mother/Father was alive, white if they were dead.

Big deal in the mountains. But I've always objected to them insinuating themselves onto a Sunday.

Today is father's day. I was still at Emmanuel, Killingworth, drinking coffee and eating a bagel with cream cheese, when my son called me on my cell phone. We talked and I talked to the three granddaughters he and Cathy have given me. Morgan told me she'd drawn me a dragon for Father's Day. Emma said they'd been playing and having a good time. Tegan, the 4 year old, said, unexpectedly, "Gampaw, it's good to hear your voice". Who knows where she got that.

Josh and I talked about The Goldfinch, a novel by Donna Tartt that everyone in my nuclear family has now read and loved.

Then, as I was getting ready to cook dinner (Sea Scallops, brochilinni and wild rice--it was Father's Day but I was cooking (Bern tells me every year, 'you're not MY father') but I was cooking what I wanted, Mimi called. (If I was on death row and had to choose a final meal, it would include Sea Scallops.)

She's up in the Berkshires because it's the 'season'  for Jacob's Pillow, where she is the Development Officer. She also lives in Brooklyn with Tim, her fiancee and boyfriend for 12 years or so. But during the season, she's in the Berkshires, shaking hands and raising money. Tim works for LinkedIn, whatever that is..., and can spend a lot of time up with Mimi during June-August, when's she tied down in Massachusetts. 

Josh asked me 'what I was doing today' and I told him, "waiting for you and Mimi to call".

That's really all that matters to me on Father's Day, to hear from the two people in the Universe that qualify me to be called a 'father'.

They are both so great. A lawyer and a development officer, both making much more money than I ever did, both solid citizens and extremely sane and loveable.

So, my day was made, talking to each of them and talking to 'the girls' (which is what we call our granddaughters).

Just right. Nothing left out. Wondrous.

I love them so much. They are both so great. Bern and I did something right, whether we knew it or not....

Happy father's day to everyone who 'is' a father or has one--which means everyone....