Father's Day

We’re very outspoken regarding our love for our mothers and mothering at Waxing Poetic, but if you have any doubts about our equal appreciation of fathers, don’t. We

Are

Very

Grateful

And

We

Want

It

Known.

To that end, here is a tumbly heartfelt poem-slash-letter-slash-list-slash-effusive-string-of-gratitude-and-noticing -- this will never be enough, the words will never be enough, but *you* are always enough, so we’ll try.

Dear Dads --

WE LOVE YOU.

We love proud papas.

We love dear daddies.

We love fearless fathers.

We love pas, pops, and padres.

We love grandpas, granddads, and great greatfathers.

We love the wonderful men who raised us, who help raise our children, who help raise our best friends, who helped raise you dear reader, and who are, in whatever way make the most sense, the very finest men we know.

You are our first heroes, our favorite audience members, our most heard member of the cheering section, our kind protectors, our faithful supporters, our best men.

We love out nontraditional father names, we love our adoptive dads, our stepdads, our foster fathers, our second dads, our fathering influences, our favorite best men. All of them, fathers, precious and brave, steadfast and true.

Thank you for laughing with us (and sometimes, deserevedly but never unkindly, at us).

Thank you for showing up. Thank you for staying. Thank you for holding our hands.

Thank you for silly songs. Thank you for sharing your stories.

Thank you for teaching us how to swim, how to sail, how to skateboard, how to surf,

how to swing a bat, how to stand up on a skateboard (or carve downhill on a Trikke), how to draw, how to listen carefully, and well, how to make people feel important by making room for their eccentricities as you did with ours, how to encourage the parts of us that have come to make us who we are -- even when or if you didn’t quite understand the deep meaning of our 9th grade art project, or just why we needed to go that maybe unbearable for you concert but you took us and we went and we’ve never stopped bragging about it...

Thank you warrior dads, thank you peacemaking fathers, thank you brave heroes, thank you whimsical wonderful sillies, thank you for letting us sneak in late with you knowing about it, thank you for showing us how to (            ), thank you for campfires, for detailed explanations when asked about nearly anything, thank you for celebrating our eccentricities even when they didn’t make sense to you, thank you for loving us, thank you for being present.

Fatherhood is as ongoing action as much as it is anything else, and so instead of waxing expected over playing baseball/football/fixing cars/golfing (though, full disclosure, we love all of those things and will shortly address them too), let’s give some room for the unexpected, or the undersung, or perhaps, space for yours (or you):

[insert your favorite father memory] : WE SALUTE [his name].

 Dearest dads, far and wide, near and distant, living and heavenward,

thank you with all our hearts for loving us.

Find a Father's Day gift in our POET collection.