Fathers' Day

Fathers' Day. The Hilo Tribune Herald Sunday newspaper offers statistics that ninety percent of runaway children are from fatherless homes. There's other almost-as-alarming statistics suggesting that growing up in a fatherless home will probably doom you to homelessness, low economic status, and chemical dependency. Disheartening.

But statistics don't tell individual stories and I think of my son.

My only son, a law-enforcement professional, is father to two sons fourteen years apart. Despite acrimony and craziness and legal barriers, his decision and dedication to doing whatever it took made it possible for my son to share physical custody with the boys' mothers. He has the tenacity to be a father regardless of obstacles. He is present as a father. He shows up day-in-day-out and moment-by-moment. He remains the touchstone in his sons' lives. That's a father's love. He is my hero. And he grew up fatherless.

Then I think of my father.

My father grew up in a home with both parents present. I am the oldest of three and I, too, grew up in a two-parent home. The great writer Maya Angelou once said that her own mother was a very bad mother for a small child, but a great mother for an older child. My dad was the opposite. He was always a "Do as I say" father, but he sent a mixed message, also saying, "Don't quack like all the other ducks in a row. Make up your own mind." When I took his second message to heart at the age of seventeen, he abandoned and disowned me.

Screw the statistics.