Worst Father’s Day

I didn’t got so far as to tell my kids that yesterday was the worst of my eight Father’s Days, but it was. I honestly can’t think of previously bad Father’s Day, not even the one five years ago when we spent the day driving from Chicago to Atlanta in a U-Haul truck and Anita bought and forgot to give me a card. No, it didn’t really matter that day, I just loved being with my family.

Yesterday was a different story. I supposed it was destined to be a tough day without Anita. Every holiday in the last 10 months has been toough (I only have 4th of July left before I am through one year of Anita-less holidays). The kids didn’t really know it was Father’s Day and they did make me homemade cards in the morning. And we had a nice couple of hours with friends watching the World Cup yesterday afternoon, so some good can be seen.

But the overall arch was not good. Starting with forgetting to send my own dad a card (and my parents sent one to me), woke up with a headache and then the kids bickering and yelling all day long. With each other and with me, all morning, all afternoon, all night, at bedtime. I even dug through all my files looking for an old Father’s Day card from Anita but found nothing.

As I finally got Penny to sleep at 11:15 (but not Julia who would be awake another hour), I nearly lost it. Thank God for an email devotional I received Friday. I recalled that self-preoccupation is a sin, as is self-pity. When I make my struggles paramount in my life then I displace God from His place. That brought me back. A little prayer, a few deep breaths and the glory be to God.

And in the future, I won’t refer back to yesterday as the “Worst Father’s Day”. That would not honor my Father.