I can picture my grandmother. She’s standing in her kitchen wearing a floral pinny, that looks like a dress with big pockets in the front, over her clothes, which always made me think she had dressed for a day in the office. If there was ever a woman who would have appreciated being gifted a pair of expensive heels it would have been my Nanny. Not that she’d have admitted it. She would have crossed her arms and sniffed in a heavy Welsh accent.
Anyway, I woke up with her in my head. She was standing in her kitchen with a milk jelly in the shape of a rabbit in one hand and a box of French Fancies in the other.
“All these new-fangled days. Who needs Father’s Day anyway? It’s just a gimmick, so that the card companies can make more money.”
Everything was a conspiracy to her.
Although I don’t agree with my Nan, I wonder what she would think about the significance of it now. I think it’s become so huge because it’s a reflection of how much more important Fathers have become in society.
I wanted to say to her, “oh ye of little faith. It’s the start of a revolution, there are going to be more Dads like mine. Dads that deserve to be celebrated.”
However, with that increase in importance comes the awkwardness for those that don’t have a Father like mine was. As people post only good pictures on social media, a jealous anger rises for those whose father was difficult or absent.
I’ve reached the age when many of my friends’ dads have died and so my Facebook page has started to look like a memorial site. Once your Dad has died, Father’s Day can shine a light on that lost relationship. Again, for some, the shadow is difficult to look at. For weeks, Marks and Spencer have been sending me emails about Father’s Day and suggesting that I might want to opt out of their marketing. Somehow that feels worse. I read the email as, ‘We know that your dad is dead. We understand if you’d like everyone else’s dad o be dead too. Please let us know if you feel this way an will stop sending emails.’
I want to shout at the marketing team, “Oh, ye of little faith. Of course I want people to celebrate Father’s Day. Everyone should have a lovely dad to buy liquorice all sorts for.”
My children's father should be thoroughly spoiled. The Long Suffering Husband is the best dad. He’d do anything for them and they know it. Not only that but he puts up with me and makes me laugh, which must make me easier to deal with. He is the inspiration for the title of this blog. Yesterday, when we were out for a walk, he was being simultaneously annoying and endearing. He has developed a habit of pointing to every spaniel or part spaniel and asking, “What sort of dog is that?” There are a lot of spaniels around d each time I am caught out by his question, looking and thinking I’m going to genuinely answer his question. After we walked past the owners of a particularly bouncy black spaniel the LSH said, “How do you know?”
I hadn’t heard but apparently the man had said, “Ye of little faith.”
We laughed about it for a while and decided that it was a fair assessment of his personality. The children used to sing a song that had the lyric, “Negative, negative, negative Jeff.”
Luckily, this personality trait is the perfect balance for my lazy insistence that everything will be ok in the end, or it won’t. I have loads of faith that life and death will just happen, which means that I’m not the parent that remembered to pack the spare clothes or the umbrella.
I hope even those of you with little faith have had a good day.
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| The best dads I have known |
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