Happy Father's Day!

There are many wonderful fathers in my life. Of course, I must mention the Big Man...he's a great father to our kids. He also has a wonderful father, so Happy Father's Day to them!

But I only have one dad.

How do you sum up what your father means to you? Certainly it cannot be done in words. My dad is not verbally emotive, but his love was expressed through everything he did for us. He was a teacher. Perhaps because of that, I always wanted to be a teacher. However, he rarely was just a teacher...he always coached and taught summer school, and I even remember him tutoring. While I was in an education class in college, a student mentioned that he didn't think he'd ever have to work additional jobs. He and his family would just make do on his salary. I thought about that a lot. I realized that my dad did these extra things so that we could have extras in our lives...not material things exactly, but so that we could do extracurricular activities in school, so that he could paint the Mustang for my 16th birthday!. We never did without anything.

My dad has a true servant's heart. He will lend a hand to anyone. He landscapes at his church. He made a friend from another country and helped him in countless ways. It would be impossible to number what he means to so many people.

Even though he didn't say it a lot, I knew that he loved me. However...the night before I got married, we had a lot of family staying with us. We had been to the rehearsal dinner, and things had been hectic. I was sleeping on the living room sofa and stayed up a little while to do some last minute things. Everyone else in the house was asleep. My dad came downstairs, and without a word, he just looked at me and hugged me and we both stood and hugged and cried. I'm not sure we said anything more than, "Good night," but I'll never forget it. When I went to the sofa to sleep, he had left a note on my pillow. I will not share what it said, but it was exactly what any girl wants to hear from her dad. I still have it in the same box that holds birth certificates and all of the other most important papers of our lives.

So, today is your dad, Dad! I hope it's as wonderful as the days you've given me!

A