I use this day annually to express gratitude to their mom for pushing me outside of my comfort zone. I was hesitant, to say the least, about taking on the role for an exhaustively long list of reasons and rationalizations that I won't go into here. Their ancient history and invalid at this point. It all worked out. At least, it worked out as fate and circumstances would have it.
Not everything was easy, perfect, or ideal. Yet it was also not the horror story and nightmare so many people seem subject to in their own experiences as parents and as children.
For years my go-to joke about parenting was to reply that it was "the greatest thing I'd never do again." That was meant to be funny, but as is the case with most humor, there's always a grain of truth. I was trying to convey that I'd not do it one more time, but it also sounds like I'd not do it again.
I'd definitely do it again.
I spent a little time this afternoon focused on the aforementioned gratitude for the fact that Tommy and Lauren are in my life and that their mom was instrumental in ensuring they were. I looked through photos going back to their earliest days all the way through to the last with their mom and beyond. It was a bittersweet reminiscence, with a highlight against the hardships: their wonderful rapport and relationship with their stepmom. A saving grace we all recognize as such.
It really has all worked out.
Tommy was more conscious of and focused on recognizing the day today than in the past 19 years combined. Several passed without any recognition, which was fine with me as it's nothing I feel a "need" for. Lauren has always made it special and did it again today with a simple statement about the value she sees in me as a father and a person in general, too. It was a sincere and insightful mature expression that felt like another in a series of small exchanges that reveal her as an independent adult.
It's implied that a parent is the teacher and the child is the student. That's certainly true in many ways throughout the 18 years we spend as role models, but it's equally true that we as parents are also learning, adapting, and growing through the journey.
Father's Day isn't an annual recognition for me. It is an ongoing routine awareness observed each time we share a laugh or a tear, resolve a conflict, reflect on a memory, support each other's achievements, accept apologies when we screw up or don't understand, and simply interact in a manner that's replete with the unspoken bond and understanding that is the definition of unconditional love.
We're transitional between the parent/child and adult/adult relationships. My time as their "leader," in a way, is ending, and they're heading into their own lives and paths while we wave and cheer them from the sidelines. As I wrote to Lauren today, I appreciate all we can share in this "blink-of-an-eye" experience called a lifetime. They have greatly enriched mine, and I believe I've done the same in return.