My friend warned me that Father’s Day would be difficult for the children and me. My father died two years ago, and my husband just this year.
I wanted to tell her that my father and my husband have never felt far away.
When I am in the gym on the rowing machine, its rhythmical movement transports me back to the tinny rowed by my father, my siblings and me on board. My father was always happy to be out on the water on a sparkling day. He would glance behind to chart his course to the beach. I would dangle my hand over the side of the boat into deeply green waters that reflected the surrounding bushland as I swayed backwards and forwards with the pull of the oars.
I eat an oyster at a market and am immediately lost in reverie, back on those rocks covered in oysters, close to where we would swim. My father would detach an oyster from the rock and offer it to me, fresh and salty, tasting like the sea.
When I gut a fish or start a fire from scratch, when I hike in the scrubby Australian bush, my father is there by my side.
When the children used to have nightmares, I would soothe them with the words my father used to say to me when I awoke in fright: “Give your worries to me. I have strong shoulders. I will happily take them all.”
When I am in a church and walking up to take communion, there he is by my side, keeping step beside me, as on my wedding day.
My husband, too, I feel him everywhere. He is there in our cheery little place by the sea, in his books, his clothing, his Ironman medals, and in the variety of teas with various medicinal properties he bought which stock the kitchen cupboard. He is there in the strength of our children, in their humour and energy.
He was there for the children from before they were born, wildly excited at the prospect of meeting them. How he beamed when they were delivered, bidding me a cheery farewell as he left my side to help wash and weigh them.
He was the dad who hurried home from work to marvel at our babies from the foot of the cots. He would sing to them, and they would fall asleep on his chest to the sound of his heartbeat, their faces upturned to his, their sweet baby breath tickling his cheek.
He was the dad who taught them how to kick a ball, hold a bat, shoot a hoop. He was the water carrier, the umpire escort, the coach. He was there in the sunshine and on icy winter mornings, a calm, supportive presence.
My husband was on the advisory board at primary school. With his good-natured wit and friendship, he would diffuse tensions and unknot problems. The staff cheered when it was announced that he would be on the selection committee for a new principal, his judgment trusted. He was the auctioneer at primary school fundraisers, relying on his knowledge and friendship with those in the crowd to gently banter, entertain and get the bids rolling. If something (like school) was important to the children, it was important to him.
When one of our sons had some work due and his computer was struggling with the task, my husband drove out in the middle of the night to fetch his own computer from work. His work was 15 minutes from home but he would travel 90 minutes in the morning so he could spend time with the children and drop them off at school before fighting peak-hour traffic back to work.
My husband used to say when he contemplated the future while living with cancer: “Don’t be sad I’m gone. Be glad I was here.”
Father’s Day will not be spent sharing cake, writing cards and unwrapping gifts as once we might have done. It will be spent with the children in deep gratitude that we were lucky enough to be loved by two wonderful men and extraordinary fathers. That kind of love, in my experience, survives beyond any parting and continues to blaze brightly.
Melissa Coburn is a freelance writer.
