I’ve been thinking a lot about my parents this week, as Fathers’ Day is coming up this weekend. Thinking back through the 34 years of my life, there have been a lot of fun celebrations of Fathers’ Day in my small family. For those of you that don’t know, I’m an only child. I’ve always had a really neat relationship with both of my parents and they continue to be a big part of my life.

When I was about 7 years old and just learning how to write, I remember reading an article about making and giving coupons to your parents as gifts for chores that you would help out with around the house. The coupons were for activities like washing the car, picking up sticks in the yard, sweeping up messes, etc. For some reason, I decided this sounded like a great idea, so I got to work and made coupons for my dad. I designed them, drew them out with crayon and marker, and worked hard to package them up in an envelope ready to hand to my dad on his day. When I gave him the envelope, he opened it and started flipping through the coupons and pretty soon he started laughing. I didn’t understand what was so funny. He was laughing because I’d made about 100 coupons, which have lasted him for 27 years now. He still pulls them out when I visit and tries to make me wash his car!

A couple of years later, my dad completed a project he had been working on for awhile: he built a jeep, basically from scratch, from what I remember. Summer was fast approaching, and I was trying to think of a good gift for Fathers’ Day, so I asked him what he wanted. His reply was that he wanted a bumper sticker for his jeep. We are not the kind of people who put bumper stickers on our vehicles really at all, so I had no idea what sort of sticker to pick out for him. At my next opportunity for purchasing a bumper sticker, I took my time and read through all of them before selecting one that said “SH*T HAPPENS!”. I have no idea if, at age 9, I knew what this meant at all, but I proudly took the sticker and marched up to the register, and, at the puzzled looks from the cashier, explained that this was my dad’s fathers’ day gift. My dad loved that sticker and it stayed on the jeep for years until we sold it.

Silliness aside, the best Fathers’ Day celebration that we have had together was in June 2007. In February 2007, my dad entered the hospital and was diagnosed with a rare immune system disorder called Wegener’s granulomatosis. He was in the hospital for several weeks. For awhile, he was taking a lot of medication and was having a difficult time with various side effects, combined with symptoms of the disease. That June, I decided to pay him a surprise visit for Fathers’ Day. Pulling this off was quite tricky, as I live in Texas, and at the time, my parents lived on a farm in the mountains of West Virginia. My mom managed to get me at the airport without too much deception and my dad was truly and pleasantly shocked to see me. We drove back to the farm and had one of the best weekends with all three of us shooting clay pigeons, riding four-wheelers, enjoying sunsets from the top of one of the mountains, telling our family inside jokes, and stargazing on the back deck at night. It was some of the best quality time we as a family had had together in awhile and was all the more appreciated due to the recent health scare. (My dad has been in remission for several years and is doing wonderfully now.)

There is a neat bond that exists between fathers and daughters. I am so thankful for the wonderful father/daughter relationship that I’ve been blessed with, as it has been one of the most defining relationships of my life in so many ways. I look forward to many more fun and funny fathers’ day celebrations in the years ahead!