Happy Not a Father Day!

Yesterday was Father’s Day. We had dinner at my parent’s house on Saturday night and I celebrated my father by buying him a bottle of Tempranillo.

He seemed to like it.

He’s also seemed to like about ever more frequent family gatherings. One of the great things to come out of Covid-19 for the Nelson family has been discovering how much we enjoy our socially distanced dinners on my parents’ drive way.

We get to enjoy the weather, each other’s company, without the pressure cooker situation that is our family kitchen with the news on.

I did not write a blog about him yesterday. His birthday was a month ago and I did a piece on him then. Another one would have felt like over kill. Like me, my father can be a little sensitive when it comes to sincerity, so I find one think piece about him a season to be a plenty.

I did spend some time reading the lovely Facebook posts written to my friends who are fathers, which by this point of my life is most of them. They were lovely reflections, usually by their wives, thanking them for all the things they do for the family.

The posts made me feel slightly odd that I don’t have kids. That I’m 41, almost 42, and have never procreated, even accidentally. And I’m at the point where my friends don’t even have babies. They have full on humans. More than I can count have kids in high school. My roommate from college has a daughter who is asking me for advice about colleges and at least three people I graduated high school with have grandchildren.

Not me. I’ve had a couple of cats. One the them died (through no fault of my own) and the other I’ve dumped on my parents.

While the posts made me feel odd, they didn’t make me feel sad. A kid is something I would like to experience but I don’t feel like my life is missing anything. I don’t look at the pictures and think, “Why not me?” I usually look at them and think, “Boy they must be tired.”

I more look at my kids my friends have with a respectful curiosity. At a life I could have had. At a life I might still lead. And thankfulness and appreciation for the life and family God has already abundantly blessed me with.