This is the 21st year I’ve celebrated Father’s
Day as a dad rather than just being able to wish my dad, grandfathers, and the
one great-grandfather I had when I was born “Happy Father’s Day.” This year continued some traditions, marked
certain changes, and is another opportunity for me to reflect on this gift in
my life—being a father.
One tradition that has developed over the past seven years
is running the GBMC Father’s Day 5k. The
first year I did it with only my then 10 year old and ran at his pace. For the next five years, I ran at my pace and
got various age group awards. In the third year, I had all three of my sons run
with me and that was quite special. This
year, having just done my first ultramarathon three weeks ago, I was not ready
to compete for an age group award, so I stuck with my 11 year old. He had a good day but not a great one. We did a run-walk combination and still came
in under 30. We brought home no hardware
this year as he is at an age where moving from one age group to the next makes
it more challenging (he move from 10 and under to 11-15) and I am in an age
group in which getting older doesn’t help but when I move up, it should make placing
a little easier. Still, I had time with
just my 11 year old and that is priceless.
Another tradition is driving my middle son to his boychoir
camp. We’ve been doing that for almost a
decade. This year is the longest drive
as they have had to change the location.
But it is still good and that is a special way to spend time with
him.
In past years, I have spent at least a part of Father’s Day
with each of my three boys. This year, I
won’t see my oldest on Father’s Day. He
is at a 4 week National Orchestra Institute in College Park. I believe this is the first year that not all
of my immediate family will be together on Father’s Day. But I am sure that is just a sign of things
to come as all three of my boys grow up and move into their adult lives.
Three of the other four members of my family (including me)
did see Christopher yesterday in College Park.
He played in a concert with three really interesting pieces of music
including Jeux by Debussy and Mahler’s
Symphony No 1. It was nice seeing him and he did take the
time to wish my Happy Father’s Day by text early this morning.
Seeing him last night as part of the Father’s Day weekend
also illustrated the evolving nature of answering the question “who is part of
family I want to spend time with on or around Father’s Day?” When we went to
see him, we invited his girlfriend Bailey with us. She had dinner with me, Sherry, and our
middle son. The dinner, the concert, and
the conversation during the car rides there and back were all nice.
It is a blessing to be able to welcome people into the
family over time. Bailey is just one
example. Another big change for the 5k was
that this was the first time since 2013 that Lauren was not running as part of
the Frick running clan and I had known she was running at least in 2013 and
2012 before she formally became part of the clan in 2014. She is away in Hawaii for a wedding this year
but she wished me a Happy Father’s Day yesterday. We have become the type of friends who are like
family and given the age difference, the “running dad-running daughter”
relationship has just been a natural one for us to fall into as she has only
had her mom since I’ve known her.
It is a gift to be a dad.
I could not do it without Sherry by my side to raise our three boys and
to welcome others into the family as the boys grow up and form their
relationships. It is a gift to share
with others. It is a gift to have others
who want to experience that sharing and share in return. It is a gift to have the chance to help build people up over time and to see what comes of it as those I work to build up try and succeed or try and fail but always learn and always grow. That is what makes every day of being a dad
special. It is what I think about on
Father’s Day. And given the amazing
people who either are my kids or are like my kids or could become kids in law
some day, I can only wait to see what the next year brings.
