Daddy

"Any man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a Daddy." 

On Sunday, our church is having a special Father's Day breakfast to honor the men in our life. Our Ladies of Ladonia group (LOL) will be arriving very early to make sausage, eggs, biscuits, gravy..the whole works, to honor them. Bethany is SO excited about this. She is planning to be up at the church with me early Sunday morning to help. For her Daddy. Not only are we honoring all the Dads in our life at this breakfast, we are honoring the young men too.  Any male 13 and over is invited. Why? Because they will be Daddies one day, and the men in our church are starting the process of showing them how to do it in a Godly way.  As the mother of a teenage boy, I really love that. (He does too, but I think it has more to do with the sausage than the mentoring).

I am blessed to have two men in my life that I want to say "Happy Father's Day" to on Sunday, my husband and my father. I love and respect them both so much. I imagine that this blog will be full of references to Daniel, and I certainly am not slighting him, but today I am going to talk about my father. Tommy Smith is kind, funny, genuine, and dependable. He is quiet with a dry humor. He had our respect from birth. I remember a time when I was in church and I started laughing. You know church laughing? You just can't stop and EVERYTHING makes it worse? It was that kind of laughing. I was about 12 or so I guess.  I was laughing and laughing-the whole pew shaking. My mother kept whispering "shh!" "Emily!" "hush" and that was like pouring lighter fluid on a fire. I suppose my daddy had finally gotten enough, and leaned forward so he could look at me past my mother. Nothing was funny after that. That is all it took. His look.  Yet, this is the same man that, when I was told by my mama that I couldn't have any homemade ice cream for dessert because I had not eaten my veggies, wordlessly fed me spoons of it from his own cup. He saved all of his quarters from his pocket change for me when I was in college so I could do my laundry. (This may have had more to do with his desire for me to not bring my laundry home than any kind gesture on his part.) But the thing I will always remember most is something I wasn't even there to see.  My mother told me about Daddy visiting his father, my granddaddy, in the nursing home. Daddy went everyday. EVERYday. Granddaddy loved grapes, so Mama and Daddy and the people in the church kept him supplied with fruit and anything else they thought he might like.  As his visit with Granddaddy was winding down, he handed Daddy a dried up stem from his grapes.  He had been a wonderful gardener in his day, but part of his health issues had caused him to not think as clearly as he once did. He told Daddy, "now you take this home and stick it in your flower bed, and it'll grow." Daddy responded, "Yes, Sir" and took the grape stem.  When they got home he got out of the car and walked over to the flower bed. Mama said "What are you doing? That isn't going to grow."  He replied, "I know it, but tomorrow he will ask me if I did it, and I won't lie to him."   That is the respect he had for his father.  He is an amazing example to me. I pray I can honor him as much as he honored his father.

 Happy Father's Day, Daddy! I love you! -Brat.