In honor of Father's Day, please indulge me in a sentimental post.

I consider myself quite lucky to have two wonderful parents. For most of my life I have held them in very high regard. Sure, we've had our difference, especially in those difficult teen years, but I was a good kid (anyone surprised?) and tried not to make their lives too difficult. It worked both ways in that in return they have done their best to be parents to me and watch out for me, but at the same time tried to give me the freedom to make my own choices in life. I am very much the person I am today through their guidance and the example they set.

My dad once told me that although my siblings and I were a lot of fun as kids, we're even better now that we are grown up and even more interesting. Not only was it a nice compliment but it also marked a sort of official acknowledgement that we had all passed some unseen barrier into adulthood. We, the kids, had now attained a new status that put us on more-or-less equal footing with the parents. From now on, when we talked, we talked not only as parent to child, but as adult to adult, person to person, and friend to friend.

With every passing year, my view of my parents changes. Hindsight is 20/20, of course, and with age comes perspective. Where once I viewed them only as parents--those people who take care of me and whose rules by which I must abide--now they are something more. As time passes, they become to me more than just embodiments of some idyllic concepts of father and mother. They become, well, the actual people that they are. It is still strange to think of them that way--as human, just like myself or anyone else--but as an adult I now catch myself wondering who these people I call mom and dad really are? Growing up I never thought much about their lives before I came into existence, but now as I bask in my independence and strive to find my place in the world, I come to realize that they too went through this same experience. It is both humbling and reassuring, but no matter how much perspective I've gained in my short time on this Earth, I'm not yet ready to completely pull down my parents from the pillars on which I've place them.

Today, of course, was Father's Day, and in commemoration of such my siblings and I met up at our folks' place for dinner. We celebrated in a manner somewhat recently adopted by my family, a manner which I highly recommend, by eating our dessert first, then opening presents, and then enjoying dinner. Dessert and presents are always the best part, so we've decided that there's no use in prolonging the wait. We all had a nice time, enjoying good food and the pleasure of each other's company. Sometime after dinner my father committed a simple thoughtful act that, as I pondered it on the way home, prompted me to write this whole post in the first place.

As a quick aside, I also feel a little sad on Father's Day. You see, my grandfather (my dad's dad) passed away, suddenly, when I was very young. I know the loss hurt my own father very much, and in all the years since we've never really talked about it (because the thought of upsetting my dad has always persuaded me not to ask about him). I am now nearing the age my father was when his own father died, and I think about how I would feel if the same thing happened. I know how painful it would be--how much my heart would break. And so I feel sad today, knowing that on occasions like this one I can tell my own parent what he means to me, but that he lost the opportunity to do so himself many years ago.

Okay, depressing moment over. Tell the violinists they can pack up and head home, we're going back to the main story.

I stood in the kitchen of my parents home chatting with my sister. I could have been any number of subjects as we sort of flow from one topic to the next, trying to get caught up on what has happened in each other's lives in the times since we last saw one another. The dinner table had been cleared and leftovers put away and I hadn't seen my dad in a little bit, but I assumed he was relaxing on the couch or attending to any number of projects he has going on around the house at any given time. He comes into the kitchen and walks over to me as my sister and I are taking a breath from talking at a thousand words a minute. He puts out his hand and says, "Here you are", and presents me with two small bolts.

As some of you may know, I have had an ongoing struggle with the rear license plate on my car. So I just assumed that he was presenting me with some bolts he thought might fit. But no, not my dad, he goes the extra mile. Apparently, while we were standing around, he decided to go out, grab a couple of screws and his driver from the garage, take off the existing bolts (that were a stop-gap measure barely keeping the plate in place), and power drive in some screws. The whole act maybe only took him a few minutes (depending on how long it took to find a set of screws the right size), but the fact that it even crossed his mind to go out and, seemingly randomly, do this for me is what really shows his character.

When I was in high school we had to write an essay on the person we considered our personal hero. Some people chose presidents, or famous scientists, or celebrities, but in my mind there was no bigger hero in my life than my own dad. I admire in him so many qualities: his intellect, his ability to take things in stride, his sense of humor, his thirst for knowledge, his unfailing humbleness and selflessness, and his abundance of kindness. Even as an adult I can't help but think of him as my go-to-guy to answer just about any question I have about life or how the world works. In many ways, he is the man I will always strive to be.

I love you, dad. Happy Father's Day!

Tags: Family, Father's Day, Reflection