I hope you had a great Father’s Day and summer solstice, the longest day of the year, yesterday. It was a great day to offer thanks to the men who played a special role in shaping who you have become. For many, it is their biological father, and for others it is one or more other men who played that crucial role.
As I have gotten older and learned the value of hearing this praise, I have been more intentional about thanking the men who helped shape me. Over the last few years I have taken to Facebook or sent cards to thank some of the many men who influenced me to become a better person, or from whom I stole an idea of what it meant to be a father. As I have discussed before, my father was almost entirely absent from my life.
Getting a text and a call from Ellie and lunch with Ben (and Kendall!) really made my day.
It is also great after years of teaching to hear from former students that I played some part of this role in their lives, and that they are grateful for my presence too.
This week I helped myself mentally transition back into the post-COVID reality by planning an eye doctor appointment, a dentist appointment, and bringing back my first quarantine article, Brownies are not Hugs. It was a nod to the extra weight I was going to gain during quarantine, and the hug-less reality ahead.
I hope that an end to the quarantine and an expanded social calendar is bringing you more hugs too. And more dentist’s visits and such too.
I encourage you to ask, as I have been, “Are we hugging? We hug, right?” I’ve gotten some terrific hugs the past couple of weeks, and it’s really a terrific medicine. I hope you get some too.
