This Is How We Know You

Before we even knew each other's face, I heard your voice, a sound that would become the first of you I'd follow, to look for and feel safe.

Before is where there were dreams of us.

Tiny hopes carried quietly in the daydreams of the life you would one day call your own.

A father begins here, I think, not at birth, no, that's when it becomes something words cannot touch. Yet, it started long before that moment.

And into the years that follow,

It lives in the ordinary things,

The hiding around corners, waiting for those delighted squeals and into the full-force hugs of all their might, those that could somehow heal anything to cause us hurt or give us fear.

The arms that lift us high enough we we can touch the sky, then hold us in close enough nothing that scares us can get anywhere close, we're ok to fly.

The dance parties and sing-alongs to his old favourites, not knowing they'd one day become our own childhood anthems.

The stories, the lessons, journeys and laughter that can fill a room and somehow all of it stays quietly, long after.

It lives too,

In the grounding grace he has that can steady us through any day's chaos the moment the front door opens to him,

And in the wonderful childlike joy, magically infectious, reminding us growing older never has to mean growing old.

A fathers love should never be measured by a singular grand gesture, no love should be,

It lives in the ordinary things,

It grows in cherishing them.

What can make them all the grander is when you learn yourself, they're given, even with the weight of what can be carried with them.

He is the hero because he never lets you know this until it might be your turn to learn of it.

The worries carried quietly,

The sacrifices made willingly,

The sleepless nights, staying awake with us, allowing our whole hand to take his finger.

The steady hands,

While the rest of his world rests,

The promises kept,

this time, with all of his might.

It's found in the fathers who choose us.

Who step into lives already unfolding and love with a whole heart anyway.

Not because they have to, but because love asks them to. Their answer, love doesn't have words for.

And sometimes,

It is found in fathers whose arms are empty, when they should not be.

Who carry photographs, memories and birthdays. But very different milestones than those first hope filled daydreams.

Who continue loving through distance,

Through silence,

Through every closed door,

For this love doesn't lessen simply because it cannot reach.

A good fathers heart still opens endlessly for his child.

This is how we know you.

This is how we love you.

Through every laugh, every lesson, every steadying word.

Through every moment, every gesture, grand and cherished more.

Today gives us the chance to say it loud.

To celebrate it,

To honour it,

To thank you.

Happy Father's Day.

To the fathers beside us, the fathers we miss, the fathers who chose us, to the fathers still waiting.

To the fathers whose love knows no bounds, no quit.

Whose hearts still hold room for us, even when life doesn't seem to hold it for them.

We are grateful every day.

Today, we simply make sure you hear it.

From his Yoshi to her Superman.

For all of them to theirs. Their heroes.