Father's Day Musings
Each year in early September, Australia celebrates Father's Day. Here a for Dignity where often our focus is on women, we wanted to shift our attention to the men who have helped shape our lives, our communities and shape the amazing organisations with which we collaborate, many of the have the title 'father'.
So I asked one of our volunteers to pen some thoughts, and here is what she had to say...
Father
Ask a young child to define what father means and they will stumble and trip trying to explain a relationship with someone so close that’s too hard to articulate…‘daddy’ is enough! Ask an older child and they might through the lens of an objectivity they have learnt at school describe father by a biological connection to an offspring.
As an adult to define father can be complicated and sometimes emotionally stirring. Father can be a job description, a breadwinner, a chief repairer, the family’s gardener perhaps. It can define a deep connection to another human - or humans - fathers can be many people in our lives. Or father can be defined simply as your own biological connection to fathers’ past and future.
But today, whatever faces fill your mind in the quiet of your own thoughts be grateful for the fathers in your life, being thankful is quite simply good for our souls. Then if you can – ask yourself of the fathers in your life do they need your acknowledgement? Will their souls be blessed by hearing you say thank you?
I hope you are inspired by Kelly's thoughts as you prepare to celebrate Father's Day. And while we are on the topic, I want to give a big Thank You to all the men in the lives of the for Dignity team that are fathers, the ones that come to my mind are just wonderful people.