Did you spend Father's Day with your father? I saw my father on TV, which was as close as I can get, since he's dead. Is your father alive? Do you have a relationship with him?

-- Kymm (hedgehog@hedgehog.net), June 19, 2000

Answers

I didn't spend Father's Day with my father. Truth is, I hate him. If there is a man on this planet who deserves less thanks for the *good job* he did raising his children, I would be very surprised. He liked having kids, 2 daughters with one wife, divorce, 1 son with wife, divorce, 2 sons with wife, divorce. He never helped out financially with any of his children and never cared that his kids went hungry sometimes and had to live with a tired, overworked mother or grandparents. Instead, I spent the day with my real father. Who is also known as my mother. We went to the movies and when I tried to talk to her ater about how much I appreciated her doing both jobs, she started to cry because she thought she had done a lousy job. I really hate this holiday. There are a lot of good dads out there, but no one ever stops to think about the people who don't have them or have monsters for fathers. Treasure your memories, Kymm. You goit one of the good ones.

-- Elizabeth (private@hhhh.com), June 19, 2000.

I haven't seen or spoken to my biological father in two years; I get this nagging sense that I should but then I can't figure out why I should.

On the other hand, I would have liked to have spent Father's Day with my family in Florida, with my step-father who has Alzheimer's. Holidays w/ family have the added stress now that I don't know if this is the last he'll be truly with us.

Instead, I managed to remain blissfully forgetful that it was father's day until this morning.

-- Tynan (tynan@proactivebliss.net), June 19, 2000.

It's actually been helpful to read so many discussion answers and journal entries about people's relationships with their fathers. Mine has been dead more than 10 years and I'm still trying to come to peace with my relationship with him. So I spent Fathers' Day night writing it all out in a journal entry. When I finished I had buried a lot of old resentments. I hope they can finally stay buried. I actually reached a point of forgiveness. I think.

-- Bev Sykes (basykes@dcn.davis.ca.us), June 19, 2000.

I'm in Boston and Dad's in the old hometown in Louisiana, so I wasn't with him in person this year. Every other year our family reunion takes place on Father's Day Weekend, so I actually get to see him half the Father's Days.

This year I called him in the afternoon and told him that, as usual, I'd gotten a small present and neglected to send it in time. He doesn't really care about gift-giving (he always says I spent too much) but I always make the gesture. We had a good conversation about his work and mine, fishing (he loves to fish) and the grandchildren (my sister's).

I was not the son my father expected to have. Dad was a high school and college basketball star who went into the family business; his father was a true sportsman who loved fishing and hunting, and he brought up his sons likewise. As a young boy I'd have none of it, hated all that he-man stuff. The fact that none of the boys wanted me near them contributed to that. Dad had some real trouble adjusting to a son who preferred dolls, television, and spending time with his grandmothers and their friends.

He made a lot of sacrifices for me, most especially sending me to Interlochen for my last two years of high school; I was suicidally unhappy in the old hometown and wanted desperately to be an actor, and he found an opportunity for me to get the training. Only later did I learn how difficult it was for him to have me leave home so early. I haven't lived near my parents for 20 years now.

My father and I have some profound differences, but as I age I notice the similarities more: genuine compassion for those we love, a strong desire to do what's right, social awkwardness in a large group of strangers, difficulty with conflicts and delegation, unshakable conviction in our beliefs (our beliefs are often different).

I love him and appreciate him more now than I did as a teenager.

/Robert

-- Robert B. Dimmick (rbdimmick@earthlink.net), June 19, 2000.

Yes! I was very glad to have spent the day with him.

And this year it was a little more cool-special than usual because:

I was born on Father's Day in 1972. It was the first nationally recognized Father's Day at that. And it was the day before his birthday. So while my birthday is always the day before his, it has only been on Father's day two other times. The last when I was 18, I think.

I love and respect my father a great deal. He is someone that everyone seems to be able to count on. I always know I can.

I don't think we've hugged since I've been old enough to go to school, I know it's been nearly seven years since either of us said, "I love you." But I have no doubts about how much he loves me, because he is always showing it other ways.

So, yeah. I was really glad to have shared the day with him.

-- Jackie (jackie@jackie.nu), June 19, 2000.

My husband Jeff and I spent a couple of hours with his Dad here in Southern NJ yesterday. Only a couple of hours, because we're both seriously jetlagged from an OS trip to Australia. Where we spent 3 weeks with my Mum and Dad. Fathers Day in Australia is in September every year, so I have to go out today and buy one of the leftover cards and then remember to send it to him at the end of August. I usually get prompted for Mothers Day and Fathers Day by the media, so I've been a bit forgetful with the Oz Fathers Day for the last couple ofyears, because by the time it gets to that one, there's no ads and no Fathers Day cards where I live!

-- Amanda Page (amanda@amandasprecipice.com), June 19, 2000.

Yes, I spent Father's Day with my father. And my mother and sister and brother-in-law and nephew and niece. It was a nice morning, with a waffle breakfast and gifts. The last few years Father's Day has been a bit overshadowed by my nephew's birth and birthdays, but the upside is that the whole family is usually together because we're celebrating both occasions.

-- Catherine (catcoicrit@earthlink.net), June 19, 2000.

My dad is in Maine, and I'm in Philadelphia, so we didn't spend the day together. I called and sent him a present.

We don't have a particularly good relationship. My dad was an absentee parent. He was the only internist in our small hometown, and he worked all the time. It seems that every dinner we had, and every holiday, was interrupted by the hospital or a patient. When he gave up the practice of medicine and took a job as a researcher in a drug company, he had more time to be a father, but by that time, it was really too late. I was 17 at the time, and I didn't need a father.

When my brother got sick a year or so ago, I saw Dad's fatherly side in action. At times I was frustrated by what I saw as his lack of compassion, but he really was there for my brother.

Fathers and daughters. It's a complicated thing...

-- Laura (lbhelfrich@yahoo.com), June 19, 2000.

My father doesn't believe in Father's Day. Which is just as well, all things considered.

-- Shmuel (shmuel@nycmail.com), June 19, 2000.

My father died in September of 1997. I wasn't with him but he certainly was with me.

-- Amy T. (als918@aol.com), June 19, 2000.

I called my dad. He was at a conference in Las Vegas. I sent him email. What a bad daughter I am! My little sister and brother, who still live at home ('cuz they're babies, don't get me wrong) smuggled presents into his suitcase because they're good children: two books and a puzzle. Perfecto.

Last year they hid a card in his luggage. It was a CarTalk card (www.cartalk.com) and it had a little "music" chip, so that when you opened it you heard Click and Clack laughing their awful guffawing laugh. Because my dad actually gets his car fixed at Ray's Good News Garage, it was signed: "Why don't you throw out that piece of crap you drive and buy a real car! --Tom and Ray." I dunno if I've ever given my dad a card that good.

-- Jessie (sorokin@alum.mit.edu), June 19, 2000.

I spoke to him on the telephone. I'm currently in New York and he's in Arkansas. We had a nice long conversation about all sorts of things.

We get along fabulously now. During my teens, we fought all the time but somehow we made amends.

-- Melissa (mesawyou@yahoo.com), June 19, 2000.

My father's dead, and so is Brenda's father.

I'm sorry my boys didn't get to know their grandfathers.

Owen was playing at Bean Blossom, and called. Ralph Stanley told him to get off the phone and let somebody else use it.

We tried to pick up Jeannie, at the airport, but got our signals crossed. She's a new daughter-in-law, but very close.

Balder was in town to do his two weeks summer camp for the Army band he's in. Working on his trumpet chops. He rode to the airport with us, and we ate supper together.

Brenda told me to go to Ace Hardware and buy myself a pocket knife. I gave Balder the one Owen gave me, at Flynn's.

I used my own money.

It all comes out of the same pot anyway.

-- Jack Saunders (jacksaunders@mindspring.com), June 20, 2000.

Sadly not, Dad died a few days before Fathers day 1999.

-- smallkat (smallkat@hotmail.com), June 20, 2000.

I didn't spend Father's Day with my father because he was in the Honduras building homes for the poor.

I disagree with his politics about 90% of the time, but he's truly an amazing man. We fight bitterly because we're so alike, but I will always be in awe of him for raising three kids by himself.

-- Anne (annegrrl@chickmail.com), June 20, 2000.

My dad died four years ago. It still burns somewhere inside.

-- caroline (lilbrisket98a@yahoo.com), June 20, 2000.

I did not spend Father's Day with my Father, he died shortly after Valentine's Day in 1997.. I can't say I had a great relationship with my father, however, I always knew how much he loved me (He was just a bit clueless about some things) and vice versa, in fact the very last thing I said to him on the day he died was "I love you" (It was a sudden heart attack, so I wasn't expecting it) That makes me smile.

-- windy (windmistress@sprintmail.com), June 20, 2000.

Oh, man, so many people have lost their father.

I bought my dad a card, but forgot to send it. I told myself that I was going to call him, but i forgot that too. He's about 4 hours away from me so I can't just stop by.

He wasn't the best father growing up, in fact he was pretty pathetic, but he's still my father and I'm thankful to still have him alive.

-- Colleen (triggirl@yahoo.com), June 20, 2000.

I have a great relationship with my daddy. He wasn't around very much while my sibs and I were growing up, because he was in the Navy and was overseas 9 months out of the year. But we had the opportunity to get to know each other in my mid-teens, after he retired from the Navy, and he moved from being the remote, kinda scary disciplinarian to the somewhat corny, unhip and out of touch, but very cool dad.

All the sibs that live in the area got together at the folks' place for Father's Day, my baby sis and I made dinner and I built and painted some shelves for his clipper ship collection (which turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself).

-- Carol (webgal@ordinarygoddess.com), June 20, 2000.

The Only Answer I've Got

is the sound of dad answering my plaintive plea for love with love

the only sound i've heard in eight months twenty-nine days the sound of his voice

and the only thing he ever saying in answer

to my bleating call

i know you do bub

to my bleating call, i love you dad

-- Mitch Greenberg (mgreen@goes.com), December 31, 2000.

I spent my fathers day with my dad the last nine years well actually he's was my step dad but then he adopted me. well let me tell you the whole story. When my mom and Biological dad were together he always was cheating on my mom. that's one reason I dislike him. .also when I was being born on July 31st 1988(he put my mom in a taxi and told the driver to take her to hospital instead of taking her his excuse was "I have to work")at 4:54pm at the exact time his friend called my aunt at the hospital and told my aunt that my dad was at a picinic with another woman.And when It was about 6:00pm he showed up with a camera and a dozen of roses my mom said she took the roses and threw him out and said "you will never get to see your daughter." A week goes by and he shows up of course my mom took him in and he came back with alot of keys my mom asked him where were those keys were from his excuse always is "work." so he supposedly had started working from 10:pm-3:am my mom had her suspicions and one day she stayed up when he came home and made copies of his keys. and the next night he came home really late and said that the car had been towed. My dad told my mom that he worked in Washington D.C.,and she looked at the reciept that he gave her and saw that the car had been towed away from a place in Arlington.So she got the car out and gave it back to him and the next night he left and my mom followed him to an apartment she sayed in the car for about half a min. and followed him in which led straight to were he messed around the door was locked of course and but of course my mom had a double of all his keys and she opened the door to find them together.so she left and threw his stuff out the window and took the car back and put a restraining order on him and he was not allowed to see me for a long time.And my mom remarried and she's happy and I'm happy but there's this one part of me that's missing because I don't know anything about him I mean I bareky remember him I was like 5 years old the last time I saw him but I wish I could meet him and ask him why he left me and my mom and why he did what he did? and that's about everything.bye

-- Claudia Michelle Hernandez (my last name before I got adopted was MERY) (lowriderschika15@cs.com), August 11, 2002.