Father’s Day gets a bit awkward at home. My brother and I want to honour my dad and do nice things for him. But my father never asked to be honoured. He couldn’t care less about holidays or cards or curated gift lists. So we’re left guessing. Should we make tea? Write something? Take him out to dinner? Disappear for the day? Even the fathers who speak more in a morning than mine does in a week are hard to honour. What do you give someone who doesn’t need more than a few pairs of shoes and shirts, and has already reached zen levels we can only dream of? (Mine wears his shoes till the soles cry for mercy and the stitches rebel.)
That’s the problem with Father’s Day. It’s loud, and most fathers aren’t.
They wake up at unholy hours of 4 am to fix the geyser so you enjoy hot water when you wake up at 10 am. They finish everything on their plate, regardless of taste, because “you don’t waste food.” They check the locks every night, just hygiene, you know. They don’t say “I’m proud of you.” They forward our achievements on WhatsApp with a 👍. They don’t complain about their day. They read the manual for EVERYthing. They keep emergency cash hidden somewhere, and it somehow never runs out aaand they never talk about money even when the budgets are running tight. They answer calls with “hmmm” (okay, mine does) and say the least when they are the angriest. They always call when the weather gets bad. They are uncomfortable with emotions but fiercely committed to care.
When I write about my father, or for him, I always skip the emotional fireworks. Instead, I do quotes.
Like this one I found by Albert Schweitzer in Two Thoughts:
It’s soo true. So relentlessly true. We learn by observing. And that’s probably the best thing we can do this Father’s Day. Watch and notice and observe. Maybe that’s the best gift we can give him.
PS: Here’s a 10% Father’s Day discount for Two Thoughts (just pop in the code FathersDay10 at checkout). It will probably go down a little better than the beer mug you bought last-minute from the superstore.
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my dad is in the zen mode, too 😅