As I start this post, I feel like an award winner who is going to try to thank and recognize all those who have impacted her life and contributed to this moment! Where do I begin on this Father’s Day, and how do I convey adequate thanks for so many loving men in my life through the years?!
I’ll start in Mississippi, where my mother, sister, and I were this past week for my uncle’s memorial service who passed away in May. He was such a dear man who loved his family dearly and was always so joyous and fun to be around. In the absence of my own father, it was a blessing to have loving uncles. This is a picture with Uncle Carl and my sister several years ago when we were together for the funeral of my other uncle.
Being in Mississippi reminds us of many childhood trips there to visit my dad’s family for summer and holidays. Though my dad had passed away when I was a baby, we always remained close to his family. What a gift!
It had been many years since I had been back to my father’s hometown. As a child, we always went by the cemetery to remember him when we were in town. The candy store, the swimming pool, the park, the local department store, and the cemetery were the places we frequented. My grandmother always had flowers there, as someone so graciously placed this past week on his and my grandparents’ headstones beside where we had my uncle’s burial service.
While we were at lunch at the church after my uncle’s service, a man named Jim came up and introduced himself. He told me he was a childhood friend of my father’s. They went to school together growing up, then to the same college. Jim was my father’s “big brother” in their fraternity. Jim moved to Miami after college, and my father and mother moved there as well. Jim was supposed to have lunch with my father the day he died. Instead, after my mom received word that my father had been in a wreck on his way to work, being at home with two young daughters and no car, having just moved to town, she left my sister and me with a neighbor she didn’t even know, and Jim came and took her to the hospital. He drove her back home after finding out my father had died. My mom didn’t see Jim again after that day. She flew to New Orleans with my father’s body on the plane. She was met there by family, and my dad was buried there in southern Mississippi near his family home. She then moved to Memphis to be near her family. Jim lived in Florida until recently when he moved back to Mississippi. And here we were meeting him, my sister and me for the first time, and my mom all these years later. He told us some stories about my dad, which I loved to hear!
As I remember my own father today, along with my wonderful uncles, grandfathers, and my step-father who played fatherly and spiritual roles in my life before their own deaths, I also give thanks to God for my husband and his father, pictured last weekend at a family wedding. They are two godly men who provide stability and constancy for our family.
I’m still getting caught up and rested from 9 days away for the family wedding in Chicago and then the funeral in Mississippi, flying in through New Orleans where my parents first lived after they were married, and reliving so many memories. It felt like a pilgrimage of sorts!
For the many fathers and father figures who have blessed my life, I give thanks to God today. Most of all, I praise God for being my loving and faithful heavenly Father who is always with me, leading and guiding me.
Happy Father’s Day!
Praise Proclaimer 