Father Gifts ~ Celebrating Father’s Day Without A Father

Because I love my heritage and also respect and embrace the cultural aspects that resonate with me, I celebrate Mother’s Day and Father’s Day twice. Father’s Day growing up was extremely special to me because I share a very tight bond with my dad. I am a declared “daddy’s girl” and forever will be. My relationship with my father is undoubtedly one I treasure and I am grateful for. He has always had a way to make me laugh, feel accepted, loved, and supported, and his belief in me has saved my life, more than once. I believe those are the most amazing father gifts one could ever ask for.

Since I moved to the USA just over 12 years ago, I have not been able to celebrate Father’s Day with my dad, which swells up my heart with nostalgia, but somehow, just talking on the phone or using a phone app to see his face, has made up for it in a way.

When my daughters’ father left the scene, Father’s Day became more than a nostalgic time. It marked the day of public shame that comes from being “abandoned,” which is how I saw it at that time. Even though that was a perspective that I stopped adopting (I now see it as a HUGE blessing!), my daughters – unfortunately -could not seem to survive day care, summer camp, or whatever Father’s Day activity was going on, without tears on their eyes and pain in their hearts. They had no father to celebrate. They had no father figure. And the teasing and the bullying did not help.

I made it to every event I could, but truth is, I was not their dad. No matter how many times people say you’re doing a great job playing “both the mom and the dad role,” it doesn’t feel heroic, no ego boost could heal my daughters’ hearts and did not fill their void. Although they can thrive in a single parent home, children, both girls and boys, need a dad as much as they need a mom. They need both.

Through weekly family night on Mondays, and our sacred day on Sunday, I have had the opportunity to have healing conversations with my daughters that have made a clear impact in their lives. Homeschooling and setting my own hours of work as a mompreneur, has allowed me to spend even more time with them and we have been able to see the purpose in the pain.

I am grateful to their biological father, because he gave me two precious little girls that have been my treasure, my miracle, and my blessing. I am indebted to him because he left them peacefully sleeping next to me, and I have enjoyed the bliss of motherhood because of that. I am grateful I could prayerfully gain a new perspective to give an empowering meaning to that situation, even on Father’s Day.

This year marks the second Father’s Day since I married, but in a way, it was the first one my daughters actually celebrated him as a father. We now have a baby, and they say that babies don’t need fathers (really?!), but the mother does because someone who is taking care of a baby needs to be taken care of. In the same sense, one the biggest gifts a father can give to his children is to love their mother.

Ever since he came into our lives, he has been an example of patience, gentleness, sensitivity, and personal growth. We have seen his transformation before our eyes, and have been recipient of his tender kindness. He has loved me. He has loved them. We are grateful and appreciative for those gifts, and for the gift of a father, because even though they once had one, they were so tiny, they really can’t remember it.

It was so fun to celebrate him on Father’s Day. We went to the movies in our pajamas and watched HTTYD2. We wrote him beautiful words on beautiful cards, we played and sung songs of appreciation, and we put on a play based on the book “Are you my mommy?” but with a “daddy,” instead. I was the horse in the play – probably because of my mane LOL.

I am really grateful that God put him in my life. I am grateful that he had the courage to pursue me, and that I let go of my fear and accepted him. This was also a Father gift… my Heavenly Father’s.

I am grateful to celebrate Father’s Day twice… and receive twice the joy of all of the father gifts I have been blessed with! I am grateful to know that when I’m rooted in my true identity, celebrating Father’s Day without a father has really never happened, because my Father is with me at all times and will never forsake me!

Did you have a Happy Father’s Day? Share your most precious Father’s Day memories below!