Father’s Day is the only celebratory day of the year that I’m emotionally attached to.

Giving and receiving presents for birthdays and Yule is nice, as is getting together with loved ones. Samhain is spiritual, a night I remember and honor others who are gone. Beltane is a rowdy blast. But Father’s Day is the sacred one.

I’m like most other parents, in that my universe rotated on its axis and opened like a laughing flower, when my child was born. I’m happy much of the time, but there’s a frozen place at my center. I suspect that all humans have that place, though maybe not all are aware of it.

It’s the place that knows that we’re utterly alone, trapped inside our skin; that we came from oblivion and will return to it eventually, hopefully achieving a few moments of grace in between.

I don’t know any more what it’s like to not be a father. I think my childless friends can be fulfilled and joyous, probably in ways that are no longer available to me. But I don’t know.

I’m not smug about it, because it’s also the hardest sustained effort I’ll ever make. I simply can’t imagine who I might be or how I could be happy without having Rachael as part of my life.

This is the first Father’s Day that Rachael is an adult. She and I have an unusual, though certainly not unique relationship. I left her mother when Rachael was five years old. Unlike a lot of luckier, better parents, I know what it is to live in constant fear that she would be taken from me. Frequent threats and multiple lawsuits kept that fear alive all through her childhood. We’ve both had to fight, more than once, to keep access to each other. It’s probably warped me, and I’m a stronger person for it.

I do not and cannot take her for granted, and there’s never been a moment when I wished she wasn’t with me. I know that I talk about her too much, and brag too much, and this likely bores and embarrasses my friends. I find it difficult-to-impossible to suppress my adoration.

As we grow up, we learn to tuck that sort of unrestrained love away. We clothe our sentimentality, our soft spot, in wry off-handedness and self-consciousness.

We all think our kids are magical; I understand that intellectually. But not emotionally. I like to think I’ve gotten better about mentioning unasked the magic in my life. But I probably haven’t. If you’re a parent, you know exactly what I mean. Your kids are magical, too.

My daughter melts the frozen place at the center of my heart. She is the grace in my life.

When I arrived at the Goddam Hippie Commune on Friday night, she showed me the present she’d gotten for me. It and her Yule present are the two best presents I’ve even gotten.

Happy Father’s Day!

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