When I think about my Dad, I think about the smell of milky coffee.

I hear “his” jokes (its a garbage truck) and see his hands. So, if you’re reading this, Happy Father’s Day. Thank you for taking all those long train rides to bring me to Niagara Falls and for helping me through University.

And for my eyes, because I think they are yours. Or at least that is what I see when they look back at me in the mirror.

Some of my favorite people are Fathers. There is something about a man once he becomes a father that is deeper and more complete.  Real men love their children. They sit quietly with them and listen to their stories.

Fathers can be champions. Heros.  Knights in shining armor

True fathers show boys how to be men and little girls how men should be. The perfect combination of strength and tenderness. Silliness and discipline.

Love incarnate.

Great fathers know that their children are amazing, even when they don’t understand them.

I think we make it very hard sometimes for men to be good fathers. We ask for superhero status. I often worry about how hard we are as women on each other, but we are often much harder on our men.

As a mother of two boys, I struggle with this. How do I raise great men? My children are blessed with a most wonderful father. A man who washed diapers as he worked nights, who puts up with me and who never ever fails to tell his daughter how loved and wondrous she is.

We need great men. We really do. And so, on this day that celebrates the most wonderful amongst us – fathers – I celebrate you.

Men who walk the halls at night. Men who save their money for college funds. Who put their needs beneath those of their tiny loves. Men who lift their children to their shoulders, and take baseballs thrown “below the belt”.  Who “carry pictures where their money used to be.”  Men who know that breasts are also for feeding babies and beautiful women come in all sizes, with stretch marks and bellies. Men who shop for strollers instead of Porches and would rather spend their weekends at soccer games than in the office working late.

Fathers. True love, come true.