Only hours after he meticulously Ajax'd and Spic n' Span'd the bathroom, he'd hearing the bath water running.
Didn't it only make sense to take a bubble bath when the bathroom was Jim Guckeen spotless?
Somewhere in the back of my head, I was expecting my first Father's Day without Dad to be a bit more difficult like this. I had the Door Peninsula Strawberry Wine in the fridge. The oreos in the pantry. The Kleenex primped and ready to go.
But for some reason, the tears only managed to come when I was cleaning the bathroom. Figures.
Hours after Ajax'ing and Spic n' Span'ing my own domain, indulging in - what else - a bubble bath, the reason I haven't spent my day sucking on a wine bottle and going through insane amounts of Kleenex hit me.
There dads out there who aren't dads - at least not in the way we honor them today. Dads who beat their kids. Dads who are alcoholics or drug addicts or whatever other destructive vices that are out there. Dads who wish their kids were someone or something else. Dads who don't see their kids, don't know or care to know their kids exist. Dads who never say "I love you." Dads who never give a hug or a kiss or just call to say "Hi." And for those kids, who may never know whether or not their father loves them, today is a much harder day than it is for me.
Because I'm just a kid - a kid whose father always said "I love you," who never felt her father wished she was something else. There were always hugs. I always knew he was proud of me, no matter how small the task I had just accomplished. Looking back on my 24 years of life, I can't think of a single moment with my dad when he was, what some may call, a "bad" dad.
And I can't think of a single moment when there might have been any doubt in my mind, whether or not he loved me.
Happy Father's Day Dad. Hope you're enjoying a cold one in heaven with Grandpa.
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