My First Father’s Day: Redeeming a Legacy of Loss
Growing up, my family didn’t celebrate Father’s Day. My parents divorced, after nine years of marriage, when I was six-years old. My father was distant during the marriage, and he became even more estranged afterwards. When my father was convicted of murder and received a life sentence, it became solidified in my mind that I probably wouldn’t ever celebrate Father’s Day. My younger brother coped with this loss by giving his ‘arts and crafts’ Father’s Day gifts to mom. I coped by ignoring the day completely, as if it were any other Sunday. But that legacy of loss is being