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tim
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Really getting into it |
Location: UK, West of London in Ber...
Registered: February 2002
Messages: 842
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I have never celebrated it, but Mel has "for Alex". For me it has always been a "Hallmark Cards inc" festival.
Since I married Mel she induced me to send cards etc om Mothering Sunday (UK celebrates the religious event, not the card festival), and for reaosns I have never understood my mother presents each of us with a mothers' day and a fathers' day card. There is always a cash gift inside. We accept it, but have never understood either the card or the gift.
Today, after a very weird day, I took the woman back to her home. We had invited her to see Alex's school since she is having surgery ths summer on her spone and wil proabbly not survive it (15% mortality rate and she is 83). We decided she probably ought to allow her this. We do not get on, she and I.
When I got home I discovered that she has asked Alex to give me her fathers' day card when I got back. It had a random card in it. She has excellent taste - she likes anything! and the words "I am proud of you".
But for what? And why can't the bitch TELL ME HERSELF?
I now have to phone her to say "Why, thank you!" And I can't without either yelling down the phone or crying my heart out. This is the woman who asked if I masturbated when I was 17 or so, and told me soon after that she was "glad I was going out with girls because your father and I thought you might be going to be a homosexual"
I am beginning to find that I hate her.
smith has a far better idea of fathers' day than I do.
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Your post reminds me of this Bizarro funny-strip that I got... A man sits in a chair and is getting hypnotized by a therapist. The therapist says something like, "...And now you and your mother can have a discussion about all this." In the man's head he is standing on a tropical beach, and we see the shadow of this HUGE ENORMOUS CRAB MONSTER approaching from out of frame... 
...Mothers can be...complicated.
-Lenny
"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
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trevor
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Really getting into it |
Registered: November 2002
Messages: 732
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I think my mother in law has the right idea - she uses mother's/father's days to honor parents for doing their "job" - not necessarily just her own parents.
All we can do is to love our parents and accept their faults, for they are the only ones we have, and hope our children will do the same. Some have problems expressing themselves, especially if they have regrets over the past. It took my father years to be able to show any emotion at all to his adult children - he was mostly an absentee father, but I think grandchildren have given him a "second chance" in a way. Likewise, I still haven't forgiven him for basically calling one of my two best friends, a girl, a slut, back in my teen years when we had slept (as in inactivity) together with permission. Someday, I need to do that, although he's probably forgotten the event and doesn't know he needs forgiveness - it is my need, I suppose.
I'm starting to totally accept my mom for all her eccentricities. She has forgotten my birthday again. I do forget hers, and everyone else's but my wife and kids', but she did not grow inside me and I did not invest a dozen years raising her, and am sure she remembers her stepdaughters'. I suppose that's unfair, but I do know how I feel about my kids is very different from how they feel about me.
Anyway, I guess my point is, try to love and honor your parents - they're probably doing the best they can. Someone once said that we traumatize our children and they spend the rest of their lives trying to recover. Sad and pessimistic, but true in a sense for many of us.
Tim, be proud that you've done better for your son than your father did for you. Be proud that you've done what you believe to be best for him, used whatever tools God has given you, are still there when he needs you, and are someone he can trust and turn to. THAT is certainly worthy of a holiday.
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trevor
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Really getting into it |
Registered: November 2002
Messages: 732
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from our parents, yet they are people with faults and we are in a position to have an excellent view of them. Sorry, a bit melencholy, I suppose.
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Guest
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On fire! |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 2344
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If I'd known, I would have baked you a cake.
>>>giggle<<< Be VERY glad I didn't. I can't
cook worth crapola
I hope your day has been a good one and I
hope this coming year brings you peace,joy
and contentment.
smith
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mihangel
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Likes it here |
Location: UK
Registered: July 2002
Messages: 192
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We know all too well what we think, or thought, of our parents, who in most cases presumably did what, by their lights, they thought best for us. What seems much more scary to me now is what our kids think of us, or those of us who have them. We'll probably never know the full story; which is perhaps just as well! Yet we presumably do what, by our lights, we think best for them. As Trevor says, perfection is unattainable.
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trevor
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Really getting into it |
Registered: November 2002
Messages: 732
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It was actually a very shitty day, but that just makes your greeting so much more important! Thanks, sincerely, and I'm sure it'll be a good year.
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e
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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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It's often much easier to hate them than it is to love them. I frequently tend to remember all the horrible things they did to me as a child and to forget all the good things. I TRY on Mother's Day and Father's Day to remember the good and forget the rest, though I don't always succeed. Today was one of those unsuccessful days. I didn't even think of my dad until just now. I was too busy enjoying a day at the beach with my wife's family. And what was the first thing I thought of? That if he were still alive, he wouldn't have wanted to spend the day with me. We were like that. The older I got, the further apart we grew. We just had nothing in common. He never really treated me poorly, but he never gave me the only thing I ever wanted from him, either, his time.
But I will think of at least one fond memory today. It was a day that he did give me some time. A day we spent together. I was 9, maybe 10 years old. He took me to Cleveland to watch the Indians play the Red Sox (baseball). It was a double-header (two games in one day). Luis Tiant and Sam McDowell pitched for the Indians. They lost both games. But, it is probably the best memeory I have of my dad and I spending time together. It was just me and him and it was my very first trip to see a Major League Baseball game.
Think good thoughts,
e
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I used to think that fathers day was not much. I just used to see it as get Dad a card and some Hankies or something I made him. We dont celebrate Fathers day until Spetember but, I now know what having a Dad means.
Fathers day is a really special time. I hurt my Father when I was 13 and he showed me how much I mean to him. I try very hard to show my love for him EVERY Day but, Fathers day gives me a further chance to show it to him. It is more than buying a card and maybe more aftershave that he doesnt need or Hankies or?? It comes from your heart. It is the meaning of love that you thought enough to do it. My Dad doesnt have HIS Dad anymore and Fathers day pains him so. I can make him smile that day of all days by showing him love.
It means more than the Cards and pressies, it is the intention.
Fathers arent perfect, they make mistakes but one hug can erradicate all the hurts you have suffered. I am lucky in this life, I have 2 Dads Number II Dad knows WHO he is.....
People have a habit of changing your direction through life
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Not only is Father's Day...and Mother's Day... weird, it's also painful, as others have written so well here.
I came to terms with my mother's failings a while ago. Lucky for me, as she died 15 years ago. She was depressed, self-absorbed, needed everybody to take emotional care of her. But, still and all, she did her best. I really wish there was a Hallmark card that said something like, "You did your best...even tho that was strange and incomplete, thanks anyhow..."
But my father is another story. Still alive at 72 or 73 (nobody is really sure how old he is, as the man is a story-teller. Well, ok, a liar who loses track of which story is real and which isn't. Even for himself.
He's living in his old age with the woman he was already having an affair with waaay before my mother died. I don't think I judge him for that, as who can really make logical sense of who we end up loving and partnered with at the end of the day. Although she loathes my brother and sister and I, and tries to come between us whenever she can.
I just wish I could know him better. And that he had the capacity to know me better. But he doesn't, and I won't have the chance. It's the lack of hope for a future relationship that I miss sometimes.
And all that can come home to roost on these Hallmark Holidays...so I try and stay busy with other things....
God, that was cheerful, huh? Sorry about that, guys.
"Always forgive your enemies...nothing annoys them quite so much." Oscar Wilde
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tim
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Really getting into it |
Location: UK, West of London in Ber...
Registered: February 2002
Messages: 842
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I called her sister to find out some more about her.
Then I called her. We will get this sorted out.
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Happy Birthday Trevor !!! 
Re: Fathers' Day is weird 
