My Father's Day

by Joe MacLeod

I’ve been carrying this one around for a long time so I’m gonna make it fast. Father’s Day is June 16, and I’m not against it or anything like that, but it has no special meaning for me. I don’t have any children, and my father was never around. If my mom ever explained the situation, I think I didn’t listen, because I was a kid and I felt bad. About not having a father. We’d go to church every Sunday back then, and on Father’s Day the priest would make some speech about how great fathers were and God is our Father, and it didn’t add up for me. I was in church, no father to speak of, and I felt bad. I never went to any “father & son” stuff at the YMCA, because I didn’t have a father. If any father stuff came up, I felt like everyone was looking at me. I felt bad. Father’s Day always makes me remember this one thing.