There is One Photo

Father's Day. It's Complicated

$24 Billion! That’s the estimated spending projection for Father’s Day 2025 by the National Retail Federation. It will be the highest expenditure on record recognizing Dads. Individuals between 35 and 44 years old are projected to be the biggest spenders.

Father’s Day has always been a complicated holiday for me. My father died when I was twelve years old, although the holiday was sticky for as long as I remember. My parents divorced when I was two-years-old. Fortunately, there were many fathers in my life to celebrate — a great-grandfather in Bluefield, WV (into my college years), a step-father, three grandfathers, and many uncles. Our family generally celebrated with a massive BBQ with fathers “manning” the grill(s).

As a writer, with a memoir-in-progress, one of the best pieces of advice I received was “write from the scar, not from the wound.” While I am not sure where this gem originated; it is often attributed to Glennon Doyle, a New York Times bestselling author. As I write about an 11-year period of my youth, there are benefits as a writer and hopefully to future readers from decades of therapy.

Through prayer, time, and counseling I have found the understanding and empathy to face the wounds of our brief relationship—wounds deepened by his untimely death. It has improved my ability to put words on the page.

The only photo I have of me and my Dad together. My maternal grandmother found it and gave it to me as an adult.

As we celebrate parental holidays please recognize not everyone is fortunate. There are many adult children with complex relationships with either or both of their parents. There are those, like myself, who had professional support to heal, cope, and recover. There are others who are at various points of their journey and some will never recover from a malignant parent, mother or father.

There is another group of adults who may struggle unseen and unheard during the parental holidays. These are adults who wanted to be parents and never had the opportunity. There are women and men who wanted children and because of various reasons, it wasn’t possible. There are women, who in a different time, were forced by their parents to give their often unseen baby up for adoption postpartum if they were not married. Some of those men, don’t even know they have children.

It is complicated.

And one last, but growing group, the fathers and mothers who have lost their children to unintentional injuries. According to States Newsroom research, a nonprofit state-focused media outlet, 2,581 children and teens ages 1-19 died in the U.S. from gun violence in 2023. No matter the cause, the result to the parents and family unit is devastating.

Everyone’s story is different. For those celebrating, enjoy the day and know that you are among the most fortunate ones. Happy Father’s Day 2025!

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash To ALL the men someone called Daddy!