Father's Day

We are a blessed crew to have Scott as our husband and daddy.  We love him, love him, love him.  He puts up with my crazy up and down emotions and Ada's endless energy and John's need to wake up at all hours of the night.  I mean this in all truthfulness, Scott is probably the most patient man I have ever met.  He quietly walks through this life with me, and I am so glad that he is my partner.  Truly, if I were to describe Scott using two words, I would say patient and kind.  Always patient and kind. 

Ada adores him.  No one makes her laugh like her daddy.  He makes her laugh deep from her belly.  I am unable to produce those laughs from her.  He comes home from a long day of work and he plays and plays with her, running around the house and flipping her upside down, while I stand in the background saying, "please, Scott, be careful," and they always ignore my warnings. 

I know that John will soon adore him; probably in a way that only a son can.  I see it in Luke and Andrew as they love Steven and my own daddy.  Though Andrew is still young enough to prefer Near a lot of the time.

I am also thankful for my own daddy, and Scott's dad.  We were given such a gift in fathers who were faithful to our mothers, who worked hard to provide for their families, who were very present in our lives and continue to be present in our lives and our children's lives. 

I posted this poem two years ago, but I have to post it again.  It is one of my favorites and it certainly speaks of the love of my own father, Scott's father, and now Scott.  Parenting, it's a thankless job most of the time, but I am surrounded by men who fully embraced what they had to do. 

Those Winter Sundays 

Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

--Robert Hayden

(photography by Cindy Stansberry Photography)