DailyConnections.net

Becoming the Dad I Didn’t Have

June 6, 2009 on 8:32 pm | By Bill Sheridan | In Faith & Forgiveness | No Comments

Note: This essay was first published in the Des Moines Sunday Register on Father’s Day 2007 (Bill Sheridan, Guest Author)

My viewpoint of Father’s Day began to change on April 1, 1966 when the first of our three sons, Ed, was born. We named him after my father who, for reasons we will never know, ended his own life several months before my eighth birthday.

I grew up the fifth of six children in a single-parent home in the small town of Lawler in northeast Iowa, secretly envying my friends who had a dad. I longed to have a father to play catch with, cheer me on a Little League games, teach me to fish or hunt and attend the myriad of father-son events that occur from first grade through high school graduation. Those were the hardest—I always had to have an uncle or family friend accompany me.

I never liked Father’s Day. The priest, year after year, gave the same sermon about how great dads are and how we should be grateful and honor them. To that end, I built up a personal mythology about how great my dad would have been, even though, in truth, I had very few memories of him. No real father could have lived up to the image of the one I had created in my childhood of fantasies.

When I became a dad as a twenty-one year old young man, things began to change. Three wonderful gifts were given to me in the years that followed, filling that empty hole in my life in the form of our three sons: Ed, Tom and Greg.

From the moment of their respective births to this very day, little by little, I have been able to put that sense of loss behind me and relish the joy of being the father that I didn’t have. In the process of loving each of them and watching them grow into terrific young men, I’ve found it in my heart to forgive Dad for abandoning my mom, my siblings and me by committing suicide.

Attending ball games, band concerts, weddings and various celebrations with my sons is a privilege that I’ve never taken for granted. I cheered as they achieved various academic and professional goals. I cried as each took the inevitable tumbles that life brings along. I made up my mind very early that they would always know that they are loved by their dad—not for what they did or did not do—but for just being.

It was not always easy to know exactly what to do as a father; I didn’t have a role model so undoubtedly made mistakes along the way. Instinctively, however, I somehow understood that the most important thing I could ever give them was my time, understanding, encouragement and moral support.

So Father’s Day now has a different and joyful meaning for me. I am living proof that healing and forgiveness can occur for those of who have lost a father through death, divorce or abandonment. That healing for me began the first time that I became the dad I didn’t have.

Bill Sheridan 
Sheridan Writes, LLC
www.sheridanwrites.com