This will be a very different Father’s Day as my son has just recently moved out of our home and gotten married. It is time to reflect on the 27-plus years I’ve been a dad as I step away from being in my son’s life on a day-to-day basis.
From a very young age, I knew I wanted to be a dad, so when my wife became pregnant, I was all at once overjoyed and overwhelmed.
My father had passed away a few years before my son’s birth, and our relationship was strained, to put it nicely.
The expectations I had placed on myself caused me great angst.
How was I going to pay for everything?
Was I going to love my child enough?
Was my child going to be healthy?
Would I have the skills to raise a good person?
What finally calmed my fears was a simple statement that I use to this day, "I am not alone."
I realized that even though I didn’t have a dad, and my mom, whom I adored, passed away six months after my son was born, I did have a fantastic wife and incredible friends who always stepped up.
Very few of the things I worried about came to pass.
He learned to walk, use the bathroom, get dressed, and even survived swallowing a nickel. He graduated from high school and college. He travelled throughout the U.S. and did a gap year in Israel. Finally, he secured a full-time job and a lovely girlfriend who is now his wife and my daughter.
What I’m most proud of is who he has become - a young man who is fun-loving, kind, intelligent and responsible.
So ultimately, though my son is no longer under my roof, he is a young man that I am immensely proud of, and that is the greatest gift any dad could receive on Father's Day.