SYNDICATED BY NEW YORK TIMES SPECIAL FEATURES
by Sharon Dunn
Luke has been looking forward to Father’s Day for a long time now. His card is carefully painted and signed, and he’s got a long list of plans for the big day. Luke is always taking about his dad, but especially around Father’s Day.
“Mom, remember that long hike Dad and I took through the forest? We were gone all day, and you were so worried we were lost.” “Oh Luke”, I say, “you were only three then. How can you remember that hike?” But he does remember.
Luke and his dad were always together, fishing, hiking, planting in the garden – days that Luke loves to recall. I guess it’s not that unusual for a nine-year-old to be so crazy about his dad, but Luke’s dad died in a car accident more than five years ago.
Who would have thought that a three-year-old would not only remember, but cherish, the short time he and his dad had together? Everyone told me that Luke would forget – but everyone was wrong. Noone stopped to think about that larger-than-life bond between father and son.
I have watched as Luke’s mind adapted to life without a dad. But Father’s Day is still a big challenge.
I thought I had licked the problem years ago with my Band-Aid solution called Brother’s Day. The boys exchanged gifts and went to Canada’s Wonderland – whatever it took to escape the real meaning of the day. “Brilliant,” I thought at the time. but Brother’s Day came to a crashing halt last year when Luke announced: “Mom, other kids don’t celebrate Brothers Day – it’s really Father’s Day!” He assumed I simply didn’t know. Why else would I ignore Father’s Day?
Luke also confided that he had overheard some kids in school whispering that he would have nothing to do on Father’s Day, since he had no dad.
At first I was angry, but then I realized that I was as guilty as those kids, since five years earlier I had taken the “father” out of Luke’s Father’s Day, hoping to save him from the hurt and pain.
“But I want to celebrate Father’s Day”, Luke told me, and I realized that my little boy was growing up.
it was so much easier to deal with the toddler who said the funniest things in his attempts to understand the situation. At his father’s funeral, he’d indignantly noted that something was missing. “Where’s Dad?”, he mused,”why isn’t he here? I thought he’d be at his own funeral.”
I remembered the little boy who greeted his friend shortly after his dad died, yelling: “Kathleen, Kathleen! You won’t believe what happened! My hamster died and so did my dad.”
“What happened to the hamster?”, Kathleen relied.
The hamster was quickly forgotten, but not Luke’s dad. There were always signs that his dad was on Luke’s mind.
At a party one day, Luke blurted out, “My daddy’s dead…” All conversation stopped as embarrassed guests looked toward Luke. I gulped. “…but my mom’s realllly alive!”, he continued, saving the moment and giving me a description to live up to.
For a while, whenever the phone rang, Luke would yell, “I’ll bet it’s Dad!” One Christmas Eve when Santa – my dad – called to talk to the kids, Luke hung up on him saying, “I can’t believe that Santa didn’t put Dad on the phone.” I guess in a little boy’s mind, Santa’s workshop is as close to heaven as you can get.
But those days are long gone. Luke isn’t that little boy anymore. The easy Band-aid solutions don’t work. So what to do about Father’s Day? Well, since Luke has decided he wants to celebrate Father’s Day, we will be doing what he wants to do, what everyone else will be doing that day, honouring Dad.
And I think that it’s time for Luke’s classmates to realize what his mom has finally figured out, something Luke has known all along: that he does have a father, a wonderful father who’s alive and well and living in a little boy’s heart.
Reprinted in Reader’s Digest,
June 2001.
© 2000 by Sharon Dunn,
distributed by New York Times Special Features