Hmmm...the trick today will be calling my dad AFTER he wakes up and BEFORE he is too drunk to have a decent conversation. I love my Dad very much in spite of himself. And since mine will be the only Father's Day phone call he'll get (he has long since completely alienated my siblings), I want to make sure I get to him.
He is a brilliant man...was the top nuclear reactor safety scientist in the country in the mid 70's...but the early deaths of his mother and my sister haunt him mercilessly. He has tried to straighten himself out numerous times to no avail. I know he feels badly about his estrangement from his children...My dad and I are temperamentally much more alike than my mom and I and it took me a long time to let go of the resentment over the fact that he was never really there for me in any meaningful way. But as I got older it was easier for me to let go of the anger and see him in a more sympathetic light. And the truth, to me anyway, is that he has hurt himself much more than he has hurt any of us.
So, to my Dad, who tried his best...and to all the other dads out there - Happy Father's Day.