So while we celebrate Father’s Day every June, we also celebrate the birthday of a pretty special guy! This year we were set to celebrate a pretty big milestone with my Dad. 60 glorious years of life! He may beg to differ on all 60 of them being glorious but it seems appropriate that this milestone deserves a bit of exaggeration. Needless to say that with the events of the previous month we were all finding it difficult to muster the energy and desire to put together a big shindig AND my father is not one for extravagant parties. He is the epitome of the “strong, silent” type. Instead we opted for a small, family gathering with just our immediate family. A fun, photo scavenger hunt was put together, teams were created, funky hats were distributed, 60 citronella candles were purchased and food arranged.
We had so much fun celebrating the man who has quietly loved us through life. My dad is an unassuming individual who has spent most of his life giving of himself so that his family would never go without. I don’t think I have ever heard him complain about how difficult life can be. Don’t get me wrong there are plenty of stories we could share about his amusing antics, making us graham cracker chicken, making us eat outside or in the garage as a punishment for poor table manners or disobedience, an encounter or two with a belt of the leather variety, etc. Better yet, we could probably share some insider information on the fact that he’ll eat almost anything because his tastebuds are literally broken, he has a few grandkids but one little granddaughter has him particularly wrapped around her little finger, we mock him sometimes because he used to be so strict and the man we now see doting on his grandkids is not the same one we recall growing up. But the truth of the matter is that we love him so much and he has given us an amazing amount of memories and experiences that have made us kids, the people we are today. There are many attributes and character qualities that we can pick out in each other that remind us of the best we see if our dad. While it wasn’t the same celebration that we’d hoped to give him and we were all aware of the little missing person that should have filled the frame of many a picture, we know the memories we created on that day will give us each a great deal of joy as we reflect on who this man is to us and why we are so incredibly thankful and blessed for his presence in our lives.
I’ve included the link for the slideshow we put together to remember the day and I think it’ll give you a better idea of just how much fun we had being silly while we celebrated this very amazing man that I am proud to call my father!
