Hmmm.. well, Fathers Day is here. This is a strange day, for most of the last forty years or so I haven’t really paid much attention to it. This year it’s on my mind perhaps a little more than most for a couple of reasons.

First, my wife’s dad is sick, really sick, and we don’t know enough about what’s going on. We know it’s cancer, we know he’s trying to fight it, but he and we are realists enough to know the chances aren’t great. I saw him last week, I’ll see him in a couple more, but I can’t help but think about him every day. I sometimes wish we could trade places, I wonder if my wife would rather have her dad instead of me (huge guilt-ridden thought but it comes to mind a lot).

Second, I’ve been reading a lot of blogs lately, and a lot of blogs in the particular theme of having kids or having difficulty having kids or something like that. I’m blessed to have three kids, yes I am. Not a minute goes by that I don’t see that. But I beat myself up over being a failure in that they aren’t my offspring. Hows that for a big word? No, I can’t have kids and I’m still paying on the pile of medical bills and heartache that go along with finding that out for sure. For years we tried (and tried and tried) and when all the normal ways of getting pregnant didn’t work, and all the wives tales of what to eat or what not to wear or whatever didn’t work, we went to the doctors and had surgeries and cried and sometimes laughed at what we were doing and eventually sort of laid down in despair and said “it ain’t gonna happen.” And I frequently beat myself that I couldn’t give my wife the one thing that she really wanted, which was to have a child of her own. I joke and I project and I change the subject and I do all kinds of things to stay away from that painful part of my life; that’s why this blog must remain anonymous since friends and family don’t even know what we’ve been through and to bring it up or talk about it (or even write, say, anonymously in a blog about it) just brings up all the pain and tears again.

We now have children. Of our own. Except they had other mommies and daddies first; mommies and daddies that now don’t have their little blessings and have let us have them forever. And I think of their mommies and daddies a lot, especially on days like Mothers Day and Fathers Day or Christmas or sometimes just because it’s Tuesday or Friday.

Happy Fathers Day, y’all.