So - This is Father's Day

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So - this is Father's Day. It's a day when we think of the great wisdom, the strengths -- and, maybe, any imperfections or failures our fathers represent. My Dad is gone, yet each Father's Day is an opportunity to reflect upon and celebrate the good, the bad and the ugly that wiggle around in my memories of him.

I'm sure my Dad failed often. I'm just as sure he would be the first one to tell you that, and withholding nothing, he would explain what his failures meant to him. It was his nature to live his life knowing that others are watching him.

Dad did not seek perfection. He knew, somehow, that perfection came with the territory of living openly in the ups and the downs that life involves. It's my idea, having spend so many years pondering my Dad, that personal imperfection comes via our attempts to hide our shortcomings. Perhaps my own greatest failure is that I took far too long to understand what Dad taught, not with the finger of instruction but with the memory of example.

Dad. I miss you.