A Belated Father's Day Note

My Father's Day dedication is a little late, but only because I had the joy of being with my father on this Father's Day.  Randy and I rode with our friends, Russ and Heather, to Nashville on Friday night.  Saturday morning we went to Center Hill lake for a picnic with the whole family.  We set up picnic tables, played cornhole, ate really, really good burgers, and got to go out on our boat and wakeboard on the beautiful waters of Center Hill.  Other than being insanely hot, it was perfect.  We had to leave earlier than we would have liked to go to a Southern Supper in honor of my cousin, Will, and his new wife, Maggie, who got married a couple of weeks ago at Martha's Vineyard.  Think good food, a beautiful pool, and tons of hydrangea blooms in a picturesque backyard.  On Sunday we went to church with my parents and then had a Father's Day meal with my dad.  The only thing that would have been better is if we could have spent time with Randy's dad too.

When I was younger, I would probably have been described as a "daddy's girl".  Always riding in the middle seat of his beaten up truck and falling asleep on his shoulder once the sun hit, I oftentimes was his little helper.  I remember summers where I would help him build decks or shingle roofs.  My job consisted of handing him the tools when he needed them.  As I got older, we became huge lovers of the lake and enjoyed going even when no one else would.  The cold month of November didn't even stop us one year.  With all of our similarities, it is easy to say that I looked up to my dad a lot and we were very close.  It was, however, a bit of a struggle once I got to high school that all of the guys I knew wanted to be my dad's friend, which usually meant it would be "weird" to date his daughter.  He also was an excellent track coach while I was a runner, and everyone assumed I would be good, but it was quite the contrary.  It was probably not a surprise to most people that I followed in his footsteps in pursuing his own career: an art teacher.  What is so ironic about how much I love my dad is that he was quite disappointed in my birth if I remember correctly.  He wanted a son pretty bad...and after trying to turn me into a boyish shot putter, I think he decided to embrace the fact that I would not become a boy or even a tomboy.  Last year, I saw the humble and emotional side of my father as he had to "give me away" to Randy, a yankee who does not like Nascar.  As hard as I know that it was for him, we both knew that I would always be his little girl, the big cheese.  

A father is such an important role in a family, and I believe my father made us the family we were through his strong faith and dedication.  There are so many correlations between our heavenly Father's love and our earthly fathers' love, and I am thankful that I have seen this firsthand.  

I also have my Pa (my mom's dad) who has a huge faith and lots of love for his four grand daughters.  He amazes me with his health-he skydived several years ago!  Unfortunately I never met my dad's dad, but my Lulu married Mac, who has stood by her side and shown much love for our family over the years.  I also have my new father-in-law who I like to call 'D'.  He travels all around the world and appears to be a genius (even though I'm not quite sure what he does).  He is one of those selfless people, always helping others, and I've been able to see him as a leader at their church.  The best part of having him for a father-in-law is that we share the same love for food!  What could be better than that?

Happy Father's Day to you all...