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A Father’s Day Perspective

Posted on June 16, 2013 - by Sandy Fox

by Sandy Fox Happy Father’s Day to all fathers. Today is your day, and I hope you celebrate it with loved ones. Many fathers react differently to this day depending on where they are in their lives, especially a bereaved father. One bereaved father wrote this poem: As this day approaches, I wonder how I will react. Am I still a father? I will sit quietly never allowing family and friends to see how I feel. I will miss my son, but I can’t allow myself to “break.” I must remain strong and always be the “rock.” I wish I […]

Father’s Day Eve…

Posted on June 15, 2013 - by Eric Tomei

Ok, so obviously this isn’t a real holiday, but it is to me. This made up holiday, is the day before my toughest day of the year, Father’s Day. It is the one day of the year where I feel really different from everybody else, and only a few people in my life can truly understand what I am really going through. They say, through time that the loss gets easier which is true to a point. You never forget it though. A little part of you wants to celebrate what everybody else does, but […]

The Shadow of My Father

Posted on June 15, 2013 - by David Roberts

The following article was originally published by The Grief Toolbox (www.thegrieftoolbox.com) on November 21,2012. I received a strong nudge to repost this article about my father on this site on Father’s Day weekend. My dad was only a part of my life for five years, but he has taught me more in death than he ever did in life. His gift to me to me and my mother was letting go, so that we could live a fulfilled life without him. I believe that my father was aware of his limitations, and that his decision to leave was the ultimate act of […]

A Father’s Day Tribute to My Husband

Posted on June 14, 2013 - by Debra Reagan

With Father’s Day approaching, I would like to take this opportunity to express my love and gratitude to the father of our sons, my husband, Alan. He carried us through those darkest times of early grief after the death of our youngest son, Clint. As I come out of the fog of anguish and begin to re-enter our new normal, I can appreciate all the many ways he cared for us. There were times in the early part of mourning that I was angry at myself, Alan and even Clint. I wanted someone to fix all of this pain. Despite […]

My Father’s Legacy: Respect, Hard Work, Love of Country

Posted on June 13, 2013 - by Ellen Gerst

My father was an immigrant who came to the United States when he was 15 years old. As he did not speak a word of English, he joined the kindergarteners in learning the language. Each month, as his skills improved, he was bumped up a grade until he finally arrived at the appropriate level and was speaking fluent English. Until I was in 10th grade, I never realized that he spoke with a slight accent. I had interviewed him for a history project, An Immigrant’s Point of View, and, when I played the tape to the class, the first remark […]

Remembering Our Legacy this Mother’s and Father’s Days

Posted on June 12, 2013 - by Tony Falzano

She was an attractive woman with thick dark hair that started turning white in the middle of her life. She was the oldest of 3 children. Her mother was from Scotland and her father was from England. She loved to cook and tend to her flowers in the garden. She had many friends. One of the things I remember about her was how she loved listening to Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand. She would sit in her chair with her head back and her eyes closed. I still recall that ever so slight smile crossing her lips as she heard […]

Soap on a Rope: A Father’s Day Tribute

Posted on June 11, 2013 - by Beth Marshall

“Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap on a rope.” Bill Cosby Unless you are hiking in the Austrailian outback or cruising the Mediterranean, you probably know Father’s Day is coming up. There’s no escaping the TV and internet images of families grilling out and celebrating dads. This year you might be missing your father. If you are, you’re not alone. My dad’s name was John Glenn. He was not the astronaut, but occasionally this John Glenn didn’t mind leveraging his famous name in a crowded restaurant. Once he was asked if he was “the real John […]

Father’s Day: Time to Discard Anger and Guilt

Posted on June 11, 2013 - by Sandra Pesmen

By Sandra Pesmen — If you want to celebrate any holiday, especially Father’s Day, you have to learn to deal with anger and guilt. Whether we widows admit it or not, when our spouse dies, most of us feel guilty because we survived. We fear we may not have been as kind as we could have been all the time. We feel guilty because we didn’t prepare his favorite dinner more often. We feel guilty because we made him see movies (and people) he didn’t like. There are endless “guilts,” says therapist Judy Berg, of Highalnd Park, Ill., who spoke […]

When a Father Dies on Father’s Day

Posted on June 11, 2013 - by Nina Bennett

My father died on Father’s Day 2007. He had been in apparent good health until the night he was admitted to the hospital. That day, he went through his usual routines-swam a mile at the Y, did some errands, sat on the patio with my mother in the late afternoon. By 11 p.m. he was in the ER, in such critical condition that the staff didn’t think he would survive the night. At 6 a.m. the following morning, he was stable enough to transport to the ICU. Each of the next 10 days brought new challenges as his condition worsened […]

Father’s Day: Not a Day, but a Legacy

Posted on June 10, 2013 - by Kim Meredith

My children have passed over the dividing line. They have been alive more years now without their father than they were with him. My daughter Samantha was 12 years old when her father died and Rick was just 10. They were merely children when they had to say goodbye to him after a car accident and a final 2 week stay in the hospital as a quadriplegic. Their last visual was of a motionless, mute forty-four-year old man who could only signal his love to his children with a blink of his eyes. But previously, his total dedication as a […]