Father’s Day
Permission to Celebrate Differently
Ten years ago, I learned the hardest lesson about manufactured holidays. I was sitting alone in a mall restaurant, watching daughters laugh with their fathers over lunch, and I was crying into my coffee. My father had been gone for months, but that Father’s Day hit differently. The world seemed to expect me to show up, to take part, to celebrate—but all I felt was the knife-sharp of my father’s absence. The man who used to remind me that “not fitting in means you’re where you need to be, just differently than expected.”
One day, I had an epiphany. I no longer needed to come out and celebrate on those Hallmark days that could cut my heart out.
