HAPPY FATHERS' DAY

Sunday was Fathers' Day. The pastor asked all the fathers to line up across the front of the sanctuary. Then he asked everyone whose father was in front to come stand with him. Charlie (my husband, you know) was surrounded by children--kids and grandkids and fosters. He glowed.
On Mothers' Day, we did the same thing. But they gave out cool gifts--book marks and seedlings in Styrofoam cups and pens. I don't klnow many mothers with the time to read, and the seedlings always depress me by dying on Monday and the pens never do work. But dads get cookies. Chocolate cookies.
After church, we all went out for dinner. There were fifteen of us at the table. We weren't all there, but we had enough for a quorum.
Then, we went to the lake cabin for a few hours. Charlie and I sat on the deck and patted a fussy baby while her teen aged mommy got to be a kid for a while. Our two boys ( adopted a month ago) and the 16 year old girl splashed and screamed and ran through the waves.
Charlie and I were content( yes, thats the exact word: content) to watch and sink back into the chair cushions in the sand-scented air.
On the way home, we stopped for burgers. It was dark when we pulled into the driveway at our house. The boys asked to go downstairs and watch some TV, but the 16 year old wanted to call her father to wish him a happy Fathers' Day. We heard her as we sat in the dark on our deck.
"Is Dad there?" she asked.
"Is he drunk again?"
"Yes?"
It was quiet except for the strange whirring noise made by some little owls nesting in our Catalpa tree. Finally, the 16 year old joined us on the deck.
"We're sorry," we told her.
"It's okay," she said. "He always gets drunk on Fathers Day."
Charlie is a great dad. I think the kids see Jesus in him. He is sometimes quick-tempered and over-reacts, but the kids know he loves them. And he is always there for them.
He doesn't see that, he feels inadequate--run down--worn out. He feels old--like he is shortchanging the boys we just adopted. Like he is too impatient to foster the young mother with the unhappy baby. But kids see that dads can blow up and still be loving. They can grouch and still joke.
Not all kids have great dads. Some don't even have mediocre dads. Some, like our foster kids, have a dad like Charlie only for a while. That's too bad. The world could use more dads--more foster dads--like Charlie.