For when you need a father’s hug

A lettered quote from Mahogany contributing writer Rachel Marie Kang that reads,

I remember my wedding, and how I wore white and walked down the aisle between picnic tables under a pavilion in a park. It was a simple wedding with bagged lunches, tables filled with baskets of candy and vases of baby’s breath.

The night before, I sat in the hotel room with my bridesmaids, stuffing gift bags for guests and thinking over last-minute details. There was a moment when the room grew small and everything seemed to move in slow motion. Though I was surrounded by laughter and great friends, I still needed something beyond that moment.

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So, I slipped outside and stepped into the hallway of the hotel. I knocked, ever so gently, on the door in the hallway across from mine. It swung open. “Just needed a dad hug is all,” I said. Then I hugged my dad. The moment only lasted a few minutes.

Still, it was just what I needed for the day ahead.  

This memory of my wedding, of having my dad within reach and not two thousand miles southwest in San Antonio where he lived at the time, reminds me of the fragility of family. It reminds me just how many of us are missing pieces from the puzzle of our lives. Mothers who move to different states, children who chase professional pursuits in other countries, grandparents who’ve gone off to live how and where they’ve always dreamed, fathers who, for whatever reason, are far from us. 

Sometimes, these missing pieces, these people can be gathered. Sometimes we can travel through time and space to see them. But, sometimes, the pieces our people can’t be put back together again. It could be distance. It could be death. It could be danger. It could be a disagreement.

Perhaps, these words can read down deep.  

The truth is that there is not one day in all the world’s calendars that gives time and space enough for the vast nuances that come with being human. New Year’s Eve will always fold out and be forgotten; Independence Day will always remind us of the ways we are not yet fully free; Mother’s Day will not always bring the depth of rest that mothers crave; Father’s Day will not always fill our hearts with the love of a father. 

And I know that the words on this screen cannot touch you in all the whole and hurting places that coexist within you. These words cannot replace the love of those fathers that should have been there all along, protecting and teaching you how to tie your shoes and change your tires. But, perhaps, these words can reach down deep and meet you in the chasms on the calendar, the gaping holes in which you are waiting to see and sense love show up on a holiday like this one.

May you embrace this truth:  

This Father’s Day, as you move and love and celebrate and cry through all the memories and moments, may you find the courage to look to the fathers and father figures in your life and know that love is still for you, no matter if you find yourself jaded or filled with joy.

No matter your situation, no matter your story know that love is with you in the surgeries, in the emergencies, in the celebrations, and in every mundane moment in between.