Father's Day is soon and I'm too busy to blog, so I've pilfered another great article from e-Horizons:

What about Dads?

“Some of my favorite childhood memories from when I was a kid in the 1960s were the mornings when my dad would let my mom sleep in and he would make breakfast and get us off to school. He would pull whatever he could find out of the refrigerator (jello, cake, etc.) and serve it to us. My mother would have died, but we never told her and we loved it. I felt especially attached to my dad on those mornings.”

The role of fathers has changed and evolved since this example. Today there are single dads raising children, same-sex dads, dads who are primary caregivers for children while moms work, grandfathers actively involved in grandchildren’s lives, and on and on. Fathers are playing increasingly active roles in their children’s lives. Some roles might be considered traditional (e.g., coaching the soccer team) and some less traditional (taking care of a newborn when mom returns to work). All are good and important. The influence of fathers in children’s lives is critical; however often the pressures on dads also to be primary breadwinners takes precious (and necessary) time away from parenting. How does a dad balance these competing demands?

What we know:

Fathers are key in their children’s lives. Research shows that father involvement leads to positive outcomes for children. Children want close relationships with their dads and they want them involved in their daily lives. At the same time, when there isn’t a father in the family, children are resilient. Sometimes an older brother, grandfather, uncle, or friend can play a fatherly role.

Dads should be allowed and encouraged to have their own unique relationship with their child(ren). This relationship will not be the same as the mom’s relationship with the children, but it will have its own unique strengths and qualities. Regardless of how far we have come, sometimes societal messages around gender roles still make dads feel secondary in parenting or primarily responsible for discipline. This is not true. Men are just as able to nurture children as women. Fathers’ relationships with their children matter to both the child/ren and the dad.

Dads should look for chances to have one-on-one time with their child. Another name for this is “special play time.” During “special play time,” your child gets to decide the activity or activities for a set amount of time with no interruptions for phone calls or outside conversations. Your job during this time is to follow the lead of your child in what they choose to do as long as it is safe. Special play time is as sacred as any appointment on the calendar. You plan ahead for it and follow through (e.g., 10 – 11 a.m. every Saturday morning). Your child will come to count on that time with you, even if it is only once a month.

Children want to know about you and about your life. Teaching your child a skill that you know (e.g., gardening, cooking, or carpentry) is one good way to spend time together. “Hang-out” time, where you could play in the park, rough-house, or read together, for example, is also very important. It is often after “hang-out” times that children can feel connected and start to talk about what is really on their minds.

Remember that dads are key in children’s lives. Your relationship with your child matters!

TODAY I REALLY MISS MY DAD

It's been sixteen years this week since my dad died of colon cancer. When I reflect on what this means, I almost can't breathe -- for reasons like: wow, sixteen is the number of years it took before I got my drivers license or had my first date, or that sixteen is just Dane times two, or that it's been sixteen years since I last saw him skeletal, wretching and pale, crying that he'd never see me get married or meet his grandchildren.

Not all thoughts are so harsh, though. If I reach out and grasp some of the memories floating around in my brain, I think of things like sailing on his 32-foot sailboat in the Puget Sound with him when I was seven -- he bought my cousin and me matching blue t-shirts with fuzzy white lettering on the front that said DECK TOAD because we couldn't sit still on the boat; I think of that same sailboat charred beyond repair when arsonists lit it up a year or so later after he'd restored all the teak wood beautifully (the newspapers wrote it up as arson possibly as a direct link to his role as a sheriff's deputy).

I think of swimming with him at one of his girlfriends' houses (he had many girlfriends, much to my dismay), but we just got crazy doing dives and splashes, he made his normally flat, short hair stand on end and posed for the camera with me with a wild look in his eyes, and he let me put a red bandana around my head and wear his 70s glasses for another goofy pose.


I think of years and years of camping with him, pitching our tents up alongside a river, playing Acey-Deucey, Backgammon, Fish and War while swatting mosquitos, later fishing or catching crawdaddies to sizzle in butter. We went through a lot of different vehicles along the way, the old light blue soft-top (I think) Range Rover, the red VW station wagon, a couple of Ford Broncos.


Top music favs: one summer it was Rocky IIIs "Eye of the Tiger," which we saw together and loved -- he let me play it over and over for miles of open highway. I also remember Fleetwood Mac, the album with a ponytailed guy with his foot up on a chair. And I'll never ever in a million years forget "Ghostriders in the Sky," played over and over, because whenever it came to the part where the old cowboy "heard one call his name" my dad would yell, "Hey, Anjie!" and I'd barely be able to contain myself.

When he died, I didn't get much of his stuff, but I did get a box of photos and small mementos and even some poems he wrote. As his daughter, it was very moving to find what he'd kept of mine -- besides the photos, there were school programs, team certificates, and cards I'd made for him.

And among the photos, his sense of humor was captured. He had a wicked streak that I appreciate even more now that I'm an adult. But just in case you missed it up above, here's a bit of his legacy that I'm so glad has lasted.

I sure miss this guy.

William Lewis Seewer
b. June 4, 1941
d. October 28, 1992

R.I.P., Daddy-o.

GAME TURTLES KAYAK

This post's format is a mystery to me, but that happens on the Mac. No sweat. You can figure this out. Here are the clever headings that should accompany these photos: Hangman - Star Wars/Marin style, Snacks with the turtles, Kayaking with Uncle Kai, and Kayaking with Dad.

By the way, I took the kayak out on Wednesday while everyone was in school. (I start school/teaching next week.)

What was there: silence, stillness, diving pelicans, a seal, a breeze drying my lips and standing my arm hairs up, a boat called Great White.

What was left of 'there' when I got home: salt streaks on my legs, sand on the floor, and the memory of the kayak spin-out, where you quit paddling and your kayak turns itself half-way around with a soft whoosh -- that slower, but just as satisfying, version of a teenage tire skid.

DREAM VISIT

A friend of mine is writing a book about the ways the dead or dying connect with the living. She's collecting real experiences and asked my writing group if anyone had an experience to tell her about. This is the email I just sent her. It's definitely in free-write/condensed form, and the contents may be a bit sappy for some, but I decided to post it anyway.

***

My dad died of colon cancer 5 days before my 22nd birthday. Ours was a strained, disappointed relationship for years even though we were pretty crazy about each other (he and my mom divorced when I was 3 and I hadn't lived with him since then, but I ALWAYS missed him, which was a lot of the disappointment part).

He told me he had cancer in May of '92, just before I was supposed to head to Alaska for my first summer as a driver/tour guide. He wouldn't let me stay home to care for him because he said I needed to experience our Last Frontier (he was a wild cowboy sheriff type) -- and he said he wasn't all that bad. I left reluctantly and kept in touch with occasional letters and phone calls, usually gushing about how exciting my life was. He was happy/receptive and didn't let on much about his condition. I had no idea how heroic or self-sacrificing he was being.

When I came home that October he called me and said he needed to see me. I went to his ranch where I was horribly, painfully surprised: he was this retching, retched skeleton of a man -- a 100 pound fragment of the 6'4" healthy father I'd always known -- and nobody had told me the truth about his condition. We had our awful, awkward bawling (last) words and embraces; I left numb and scared and sad and furious with myself for spending my summer in such oblivion when I could've been spending that time caring for and loving my dad, mending things with him. He died a week later, which, somehow I also hadn't really expected. I wasn't even there for that, which I also regretted.

That back story seems significant to understanding, then, the tremendous peace and warmth I felt the week after his memorial service, when I had an incredibly vivid dream: one morning I woke up feeling like I'd spent the entire night in his (healthy) presence -- I heard his laughter, felt his hand on my head, listened to him say how proud he was of me and how much he loved me. We'd spent the whole night just talking and visiting. When I woke up, I felt like we'd lovingly sent each other off on our separate journeys, sure of what we'd meant to each other, like everything was ok even though it had all gone so very weirdly. I simply laid in bed for an hour or so after that dream/visit, feeling what it had felt like to be with him, but sensing that feeling his presence was fleeting too.