Such a good dad

This is one of my favorite photos of my kids with the man they are blessed to call dad. He is the best father, and I know good fathers, because I had one, too. So did he. How lucky we have been, and still are. I adore the way our kids lean into their dad, sure of his welcome, trusting his devotion, forever rooted by his love. Our babies are grown now, but they still lean into their dad in much the same way.

Yesterday both our son and daughter and their loves came over to spend the day with us. Our girl made her dad a key lime pie, and she and her sweet young man also rustled up a seafood boil for dinner, with shrimp and crabs legs and corn and potatoes in a bright creole broth, and it was delicious. We all sprawled in the living room after dinner and watched movies, an action flick and a comedy, everything wonderfully low key. A perfect father's day my husband said. 

I find that on these hallmark holidays I avoid social media now. I miss my mom and dad more intensely with each passing year. It’s a quiet yearning for them, almost peaceful in its constancy, except when I go on social media and see all the postings of people with parents here or gone, and my sense of loss flares into something blinding. It passes. It gentles down again the next day, and I feel grateful I had them for as long as I did, blessed that they were mine, and this is just how it goes. I imagine my husband, also an orphan, feels similarly, though he is a practical sort, and would never wring his hands, literally or figuratively, over that which can never be changed. 

 Our wonderful parents, and their firstborns.