Today is Father’s Day, tomorrow would have been my father’s birthday. We usually celebrated them together, along with a little celebration for the end of school, and always had strawberry shortcake. My father has been gone for 30 years and I miss him (and my mother, who has been gone 13 years) every day. This is the progression of life that we must all face and come to terms with.
Somebody posted on facebook this morning ‘Anyone can be a father, it takes some one special to be a Dad’. Breaking that down, we all know that there’s way too much of the ‘anyone can be a father’ stuff going on, with people bringing into this world a new human being that they cannot – or will not – care for correctly, cannot afford the cost of either financially or emotionally, will not take the time and effort to give them care, love, guidance, values. We need fewer fathers and more dads – dads to praise or to correct as necessary, to teach and to set an example, and to be there with their strength.
Some fathers do get to be dads, some will never make it. That’s a loss to their children, but an even greater one to themselves.
My daughter’s father was an off and on dad, maybe mostly off. He tried, off and on, and cared, in his own way. He’s tried to do some reconnecting over the past couple of years, having moved from Florida back to our area, and has reached out some, and I’m glad. Even with all that’s been missed, there’s a chance to have something in the time they have left to do it. Her stepfather had good intentions, but was distracted and didn’t know what to do with a daughter and stepdaughter. My daughter let him know he was forgiven, with a birthday card that said ‘now that I’m a parent I know where you were coming from all those times’ or words to that effect. She’s also managed to let her own father know the same thing, I think.
I think I know where both the fathers were coming from, to some extent, because, like I said last month, I was never all that great a mother.
So, besides being fathers, they both had some times when they were dads. I’m happy for that, and happy that my girls had those times. And I’m happy for all the children, of all ages, who have a dad, even if it’s just for a little bit. Make the most of it.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
The ending of a post on A Day In The Life Of An Ambulance Driver, for the whole thing go to http://ambulancedriverfiles/2010-06/hunnert-percent-murkin/ :
“But these immigrants are not the ones we’re looking for. These people came here because America represented an opportunity. They live here, they work here, they pay taxes here, and they send their kids to college here.
They’re the people Emma Lazarus was talking about in that sonnet enscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty:
…”Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the tempest-tossed, to me,
I lift up my lamp beside the golden door!”
In other words, they’re Americans too, and they enrich this country with their culture and their presence. They represent the values this country was founded upon.
Me, I think I’m going to take my business elsewhere in the future. Maybe even learn to say, “Thanks, partner, have a good ‘un,” in Urdu.
I think it would be the American thing to do.”
Needless to say, he got a bunch of responses, some completely supporting his thoughts, some disagreeing. My response:
Where did your family come here from? Unless we are Native American, we are all immigrants. Some are more generations removed that others; personally I am two generations away on one side and go back to the Mayflower on the other. Our life today takes in parts of all of the cultures that make up our population, the heritage that each brought to this land with them. Don’t know about in rural Louisiana (my experience in that part of the world is limited to a delivery in New Orleans once and helping at an animal shelter after Katrina), but here in upstate NY we have German, Polish, Indian, Italian, Irish and many other ethnic festivals that are attended by people of many heritages. If the Indian and Pakistani people shouldn’t keep their culture, does that mean that Italians shouldn’t eat spaghetti, or Irish not celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? No, I don’t condone illegal immigrants, and hate extremist action by any side of the issue (my squad went to NYC and I saw first hand the sad pile of fire trucks and ambulances pulled from the WTC rubble). No, we may not have the same religious or cultural beliefs as many of them do. But, yes, the majority of them are here for the same reasons our forefathers came – to express and practice their beliefs and to improve their lives. And as long as they do it as our forefathers did (ok, hanging the witches is an exception to this whole thing) – peacefully and within their own community, where’s the harm to us? Education and understanding of differences, acceptance of people for who they are what is needed, not judgment of all by the actions of a few.
“But these immigrants are not the ones we’re looking for. These people came here because America represented an opportunity. They live here, they work here, they pay taxes here, and they send their kids to college here.
They’re the people Emma Lazarus was talking about in that sonnet enscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty:
…”Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the tempest-tossed, to me,
I lift up my lamp beside the golden door!”
In other words, they’re Americans too, and they enrich this country with their culture and their presence. They represent the values this country was founded upon.
Me, I think I’m going to take my business elsewhere in the future. Maybe even learn to say, “Thanks, partner, have a good ‘un,” in Urdu.
I think it would be the American thing to do.”
Needless to say, he got a bunch of responses, some completely supporting his thoughts, some disagreeing. My response:
Where did your family come here from? Unless we are Native American, we are all immigrants. Some are more generations removed that others; personally I am two generations away on one side and go back to the Mayflower on the other. Our life today takes in parts of all of the cultures that make up our population, the heritage that each brought to this land with them. Don’t know about in rural Louisiana (my experience in that part of the world is limited to a delivery in New Orleans once and helping at an animal shelter after Katrina), but here in upstate NY we have German, Polish, Indian, Italian, Irish and many other ethnic festivals that are attended by people of many heritages. If the Indian and Pakistani people shouldn’t keep their culture, does that mean that Italians shouldn’t eat spaghetti, or Irish not celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? No, I don’t condone illegal immigrants, and hate extremist action by any side of the issue (my squad went to NYC and I saw first hand the sad pile of fire trucks and ambulances pulled from the WTC rubble). No, we may not have the same religious or cultural beliefs as many of them do. But, yes, the majority of them are here for the same reasons our forefathers came – to express and practice their beliefs and to improve their lives. And as long as they do it as our forefathers did (ok, hanging the witches is an exception to this whole thing) – peacefully and within their own community, where’s the harm to us? Education and understanding of differences, acceptance of people for who they are what is needed, not judgment of all by the actions of a few.
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