Sunday, June 15, 2014

Day Of The Dad


Nothing is perfect, really, or nothing big. We assuredly are not, and the things we make and do assuredly are not, which adds up to us, in our world, trying to be good when we remember to and generally seeking some sort of safe place.

My father is not any more perfect than anyone else, and he and my (equally imperfect, equally loved) mother worked together to raise some imperfect kids. We love each other a lot, all of us in all of our own imperfect ways, and we do our best to communicate this in between the general terrors and troubles of our lives.

It is nice to have days on the calendar that remind us to do this, and I am fortunate to have a wife (I could stop here) who is good about buying cards and reminding me to write in them. But I am better at remembering to be grateful for all this -- for the good fortune of having an imperfect man as a father who did his best, in word and deed, to show me how to be the best imperfect man I could be -- than I am at remembering other things. I can't forget it, because I live in this example every day. I do my best, because my parents showed me how to do it.

Also if there is indeed anything perfect in the world it is the way my parents laugh at their (effectively feral) dog. I've had this video on my phone for a while, I think at least since the Jewish high holy days, but I'm glad to finally have a place for it. I don't need the reminding to be grateful for these two good people, but it's nice to be able to remind myself anyway.