In too deep....

Fathers Day passed this weekend. I never gave to much thought about this holiday. Still don't. Why celebrate a person for one day for doing what is right? You should celebrate mom and pops all year. I guess some folks need that recognition. See this is what happens to a human mind after being wiped clean by the military and then dowsed in cynicism from a formal education. Good stuff. I wouldn't trade it for anything. Well almost anything. What brought on all this? Mostly cause I am a dad now. Having a family, providing, caring, being there even when you're sick with a smile on your face is what its all about. So one gets to wonder what make a dad a good dad. So I can't answer that, but I can tell you how I don't want to end up.

Sunday I get up and roll out to the grocery store at like 7:30 am for some breakfast stuff and a couple of other odds and ends. Like wet cat food. We give our cat one pouch of Wiskas once a day. You would think we have a addict the way that cat cries for that stuff. So I am standing in line and I notice that there were quite a bit of dads in the store. I thought that kinda off considering that this was Fathers Day and all. After gathering supplies, I wander up to the only open register in the store and plant myself in wait. After getting my stuff up on the belt and moving up a little, the guy behind me looks at my stuff and says, "You got your kids coming too?". I was like "No, I got my wife and kid at home." The guy just looked at me like I had three heads. Thinking nothing more of it, I paid my tab and rolled out. Then I got settled in the car and started looking around the parking lot. There were a lot of hung over 40 somethings, maybe 50 somethings, walking in and out of the grocery. These were not the men of shining example. These were men who had left their wives, or their wives left them. Struggling to the store for some generosity for their offspring. Life has beaten them pretty damn good. Is there blame? TO who and for what? I don't know. But at that moment I had some clarity in my life. Fathers Day is not a happy day for everyone. Sometimes Fathers Day reminds certain men that when it comes to welding they may be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but in relation to family, they are complete failures. That weighs on a soul because its hard to watch a beautiful person grow out child of your own blood and know you had little or nothing to do with it.

So what to do with these Children of Men? Someone needs to wake up these men. Define the word commitment in your head and live it. Everyone needs to be committed. Good, bad or otherwise.