My father is a creative, I know that a lot of who I am is a result of being his son. He too has been a powerful influence in the man that I am today. I can remember some of what he set out to do and the doubt that people would have as to his dreams. As his son, I never had any doubt, even knowing that he had no idea of what he was doing. I did know early on that he always got done what he set out to do and that he was brilliant.
This is a man who graduated from high school many, many years after his classmates and actually earned his degree the same day as his own mother. This is a man who struggled with reading and proudly told us, his own children, that we should see his weakness and learn a life's lesson from it. He let us know early on, that our lives would be defined by the work that we would put into it. We had every chance of our own dreams to be realized, there were no barriers.
This is also a man who built beautiful things, constructed our house, our beautiful boat, our barns and chicken coops and who built the memories of an idyllic childhood and the strong foundation to my life.
I can remember a side of our house that he was working on. When it was stripped to tar paper he spent the rest of the day drawing a big cartoon face, with a huge nose and ears, really very good and very funny. Not so funny to my mother who wanted the long renovations of our home to be over. Mind you, all five us lived in a cozy little cottage way, way out in the woods. Fancy camping basically. She couldn't understand why he would take the time to draw. I didn't understand then, but I do now. His creativity would define when and where his projects would get done and he was never intimidated by what he did not know. Instead he was fueled by it.
He told me many years ago that his greatest dream for my life would be a burning desire of passion that I could not imagine, but would know when it was in my life. He hoped that this passion would propel me into making honorable choices and guide me into the greatest life possible. That my life would be mine, that I was empowered to make choices that would make me happy and that he would always be there to support me.
I know that when my father looks at me, he sees so much of himself. I know that when he looks at me, he knows that passion fuels and consumes my life. I know that when I see his steely blue eyes well up with joy, that his dreams have come true.
Dad, on this Father's Day I want you and the world to know how awesome you are and how appreciative I am of where I have come from both literally and figuratively. My wish for you today is a big one, a really big one at the end of that line. Happy Father's Day, I love you.