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There are few greater antipoles to me and “my whole thing” than my dad, but… He taught me the value of being cautious, and to take time to extensively evaluate pros and cons before I made important decisions. I took that ball and ran with it, and now I am routinely praised by my peers for my ability to foresee potential pitfalls and preemptively negate them, and reflexively I think of my dad who would suggest that it was just common sense.

Of course it’s not just “common sense” – but rather a curious mindset and an intentional thought process – and you instilled that in me, Dad. Thank you.

My son is my step-son and his biological dad has hispanic and black ancestry. My dad once told me that “It’s too bad he’s black” meaning that it’s too bad he’s black as his life will be more difficult for him and he won’t have as high of achievements due to this fact. Great, so you have just accepted that we have an unfair and imbalanced society yet continue to tell me that this country is too woke and everyone has an equal advantage and there is no such thing as racial injustice. No old man, you are a fucking racist piece of shit.

We haven’t spoken for 3 years.

My dad, my brother(13) and I (16) were on a resort scuba dive (we borrow their gear, and get a ride on their boat, and follow their leader during the dive). Descending down a line, with my dad following the dive lead, then me, then my brother.

About 60 feet deep, I see my dad jerk suddenly, followed by a bunch of bubbles. I see him grab his octopus… Another spasm and more bubbles.

I watch as he swims down to the dive leader, and grabs his octopus, taking in and releasing a breath. He signals to dive lead he needs to surface. Dive lead grabs his octopus and replaced it with my dad’s original regulator… Another spasm, and he begins emergency surfacing. My brother and I follow. Dive lead has a Merry dive all alone.

At the surface, we find that the rubber bits on my dad’s equipment (regulator, and octopus) had deteriorated, and broken at depth. He had lungs full of water, and spent the next half hour barfing and coughing it up.

That’s about all I got, still brings me to tears twenty some odd years later to just think about it

My dad wasn’t perfect, but he always did what was best for my mom and I. He worked his ass off doing a number of labor jobs (carpentry, mechanic, electrical, plumbing, etc) and was a jack of all trades. He dropped out his sophomore year in the 70s to help support his parents when his dad had a stroke and just kept working the labor jobs. He was well known enough in the plumbing business that when Disney was planning another hotel they asked for him by name to lead the plumbing project.

When all that hard labor caught up with him and he had his back surgery, it threw him on his ass and disability. He still kept working on stuff after recovering, rebuilt his uncle’s Willy’s he had found, swapping motors out of his truck when he eventually killed it, doing home renovations, everything. All while trying to teach my dumbass some of what he knew so I’d know something useful. I learned a lot from him, but not nearly all of what he knew. He was a stubborn hard ass so he liked things done a certain way and would sometimes get frustrated if I wasn’t doing it right, but never in a “I’m going to scream at you because you fucked up” kinda way.

It took me until he was diagnosed with cancer to realize why he had always been a hard ass and pushing me to do better, he didn’t want me to follow his footsteps and he stuck doing these hard labor jobs, destroying my body like he did his. Sorry that didn’t work out, old man.

It’s not really a particular memory of my dad that impacted me, it’s basically his whole memory of him that did. I’ve had lots of great memories with him, but everything he always did was for his family first, he was very selfless. I wouldn’t be who I am today without my dad.

Happy father’s day, dad. Miss you.

I’ll never forget being around 12 years old and hearing my dad address another adult by Mr+surname. It was Mr Palmer who organized the little league I grew up playing in and my dad coached. In school we were forced to address teachers and staff as Ms, Mrs or Mr but at that instance I realized treating others with respect is a choice

I don’t think he ever quite readjusted to civilian life after his time in World War II. He talked of it constantly, watched documentaries and war pictures.

When he grabbed my by the throat and lifted me up a wall. Because i hit a door jam with a table leg, while moving it from the living room to the kitchen so he WOULDNT get pissed.

I thought that my Dad always killed flies with extreme force, until I saw him releasing them outside from his fist.

Realizing that my father was a coward killing goat herders from a billion dollar jet, not a hero like I thought growing up.

I don’t have many happy memories of my father growing up. All he knew his entire life was hard work and he leaned into that, because his dad died when he was eleven. I am grateful to him for a few things he did that made a major impact on my life:

• He and my mom got my eyes fixed when I was four years old, before which I was legally blind.
• He put the first $1000 I ever saw in my hand to pay a college tuition bill so I wouldn’t have to quit.
• He made sure I had everything I needed growing up in terms of material needs.

But there are a wealth of shitty memories too. He was drunk for most of my childhood and adolescence and verbally abusive. There were times he’d show up to my baseball or soccer practices and games and beer cans would be falling out of his truck. (Never had an adult intervene there, though.)

Most annoyingly, he and my mom have “borrowed” my car for a year to work for DoorDash. They’re too old now to get jobs anywhere else and have to survive.

The best thing I can say about him now is that I know he regrets all of it. On the rare occasions I have him over he always has a gift of some sort. It’s usually something small, because they’re very poor. Last time it was a container of oatmeal. It’s his way of saying sorry, because his stoic, 1940’s and 1950’s upbringing produced a man who doesn’t know how to actually say he’s sorry.

Coming everyday to sit with me in the hospital for a month; from the ICU all the way to the general ward until he walked out the front door with me.

I always knew my dad loved me but he wasn’t great at expressing it, but it was never more apparent than during that time.

Jfc some people got some fucked up dads in the comments here, leaving, slamming people through doors and table legs. My dad was okay, he had a bad attitude but I think he understood dedication and hard work and taught me to love it too. Haven’t spoken in years, but I think about him now and again.

Who?

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