Fathers Day has never meant much to me. Part of this is cultural; we don’t do as much with this day as we do with Mothers Day: there are no flowers in sacrament meeting, missionaries don’t call home, it just doesn’t stand out. Part of this too is personal, as Fathers Day is sandwiched in the middle of a very hectic time of year for our family. We have, in the span of about two months, our anniversary, Mothers Day, and then the birthdays of four of the five people who call our house home. It’s easy to miss this one day.
But this year, more than any other in my life, I find myself thinking about this day, reconsidering its meaning. And in so doing, in pondering why we celebrate fatherhood, my mind moves naturally to the question of what fatherhood is.
I am fortunate to have a wonderful father, a man who has always been involved in my life, who has blessed me with positive and nurturing experiences, who in countless small ways has made me who I am—and who I am trying to become. Dad is not perfect, and I’d venture to say that he was much less perfect when I was younger. And I suppose that may be the most important thing I’m learning about fatherhood: you never really know what you’re doing, but you try to do better each day, and, if you’re lucky, you start to get it right.
Here’s an example of getting it right. When I left on my mission, Dad wrote a letter that touched me deeply. He explained that from that time on, he and I would be physically more distant but closer in terms of shared experiences. The more we would come to have in common, the more alike we would be, and, in a very humble and grateful way, he compared this to our relationship to God. Never has my father’s testimony meant more to me.
But this isn’t about Dad as much as it is about me, or rather, my own children. Becoming a father for the first time was frightening, and it took a lot of time and prayer to feel even slightly equal to the task. And I look back on those early years—when Allyson was an infant and a toddler, when Ryan was born, when we first moved to Albuquerque—with a mixture of nostalgia for how simple our lives were and regret for the things I wish I had done better.
As my children grow, I find a deep sense of fulfillment in seeing them be so capable, so kind, so happy. Recently, I attended a workshop on teaching student success, and much of what we did turned my thoughts to my children. One activity involved setting personal goals, and I found myself forming my goals around what I wanted my children to be: gentle, patient, curious, loving, reverent individuals of faith and confidence.
This thought has been forming in my mind for some time, that the decisions I make now, at this time in my life, are not based on what I want to do as much as they are on what is best for my children; that is, I am no longer the focus of my choices. As a naturally and immensely selfish person, this is hard. Job decisions hinge on how my work affects them, and we consider where to live based in large part on the kinds of opportunities different options would give our children.
None of this, however, adequately (at least for me) answers the question I posed earlier—what, then, is fatherhood? The best answer I can give, perhaps, lies in two pictures taken more than three years apart. The first is from October 2003, my first year as a full-time faculty member, when we went up to Evanston over my fall break, and nearly two dozen Turners—by birth or marriage—got together. In this picture, Grandpa Turner sits in a folding chair with Dad, Nathan, and me standing around him. I am holding a two-year-old Ryan in my arms, and four generations unite for what would be the last time in this life.
The second picture is from this past March. Dad and Nathan flew out to Phoenix to meet Ryan and me for some spring training games. After a game, we posed at various spots along the third-base side of the concourse with the field behind us. The four of us huddle again, each of us older in his own way. This time Grandpa is not in the picture, except in the resemblances in each of our faces. I see it especially in the eyes: the man who taught me to ride a bicycle when we lived down the street from him is there in the face of the man who wrote to me on my mission, in the younger brother who is rapidly becoming a man, in the child in whom I see so much of myself. And he is there in my own face, as I stand in the middle of this group, halfway between age and youth.
In the juxtaposition of these two pictures I realize that fatherhood is not about a man, nor is it about biology or genetics, but rather a relationship between a man and those he loves. It’s about the generations past that have shaped us, and the generations future that we are now shaping. To my grandfathers, my father, my father-in-law, my brother, my brothers-in-law, and my sons, I wish you a happy day. And I thank you.
The original plan was for me to fly up on 28 June, go to a baseball game in Orem with some of the Utah and Idaho family, and then drive home this coming weekend with the crew. But Summer and I just missed each other too much (who says I'm not a romantic), and I had written my 30+ pages, so we moved the trip up a week. So we're already home, which is wonderful, but I will miss going to the Owlz game.
We drove home Saturday and Sunday, staying in Green River on the way. Saturday evening we stopped in Price to visit the dinosaur museum. That too was fun. Here the kids pose by the entrance under the statue of a Utahraptor devouring some smaller dinosaur.
