On this Father’s Day: Three words from the pilot: “Brace for Impact” . . . how would YOU change?

Re: the title of this piece. I love those words, “Brace for Impact,” because I think this is what we are heading into, now. The only question is, will the landing be hard or soft? Let’s make it soft. Because we can.

This will be the first Father’s Day that I won’t be calling that old crusty, nearly-deaf bastard to yell into the phone and wish him Happy Father’s Day. I say “old crusty bastard” with great affection. We healed our terrible 30 year breach over 12 years ago.

But he died. At 96. In late August, 2012, my stern German doctor deacon daddy died in a way that probably surprised him. His “faith” in the “Catholic Church” — as a rigid belief system that had walled him off from me and my understanding that I sink into the divine without a priest as intermediary — seemed to desert him in the end. (Lots of stories about that whole dying and grieving process here.)

And yet, I feel him “playing in the fields of the Lord,” now. Happy. Doesn’t need beliefs any more to rein him in, keep him “in line.” YES!

Here’s a great little video for Father’s Day.

“Wow! Dying is not scary! But its really sad. . .”