Vote for your favorite Father’s Day Story

Which dad is your favorite hero? Read each entry below and vote for the one you like best by clicking the Facebook like button.

KIM’S HERO

“Although athletic and involved in many sports, when my mother was pregnant with their first-born, my father wanted a daughter. They ended up having 6 kids – 4 boys and 2 girls and I, the third-born, was the first daughter and the only one of the 6 with my father’s blue eyes.

Not many girls had a father so active in their sports pursuits (this was back in the 60′s and 70′s whereas today it is more common). I was the only one on my baseball team who knew how to bunt AND had my own aluminum bat. My father was a runner and in fitting fashion, I too became a track star in high school. He was sure to show up from out of town for special meets – video camera in hand. He has thousands of pictures in his photo albums of his kids and 12 grandkids and dozens framed throughout his house.

My Mother didn’t go into the work force until my youngest brother went to school full day which put incredible financial burden on my father – one that he took on freely without fuss or complaint. At one point, he worked 3 jobs – one of them washing floors in the middle of the night in order to make ends meet and provide all of us with opportunity for extracurricular participation.

After my parents separated, I spent a weekend every 3 weeks with my father since he didn’t have any extra money for a larger apartment so we had to visit in groups of 2. Because we had such limited time together, my father crammed it full of special activities. My father never missed a support payment or spoke ill of my mother and always supported me – through listening and offering guidance but not judgement and financially when I needed help.

Each gift he buys me for birthdays and other occasions is well thought out and geared to my interests not something that he rushed out and got. Sometimes he buys our birthday cards months in advance since he is always searching for special ones in the card shops. He appreciates when we do special things for him although he rarely does anything for himself.

He played hockey until an injury last year while practicing to play in a hockey game for my husbands birthday and took up tap dancing at age 70 complete with an annual recital! He goes regularly to work out and still connects regularly with some of his co-workers even after having retired over 15 years ago.

In recognition of his 75th birthday last year, I had a gladiola re-named after him (his grandfather was an award-winning gladioli specialist who developed a glad in honor of my father when he was born but it is no longer in circulation). I was able to get all the initial history on the original flower and put that, together with a picture of the flower in a frame for him for his birthday. He took it around to his gym – his doctors and showed it off to friends and today, it sits front and centre on the main wall in his house. Such a pleasure to give him something that is just as special as he is!

He instilled in me a sense of responsibility and commitment to obligations with a lot of laughter, sarcasm and good-natured ribbing along the way.

Love you Dad,

Kim S.”

STEVE’S HERO

“Ground is always hard but when you’ve been lying on stony rocks for twelve hours without moving, the numbness somehow creates a cushion. That is, until you move and then all the fires in hell make you very much aware of your predicament. A shallow dugout on rock-hard ground was precious little cover. The protection they did have was a low wall constructed of random stones gathered from the immediate vicinity, enough to shield a man if he kept flat.
“Keep still and don’t wriggle about old chap or you’ll have Jerry down on us quick and lively!”
“What about if we have to advance quickly? Our legs will just give out. We’ve got to get some circulation going otherwise we won’t stand a chance when the order comes.”
“Fred, my good fellow, we’re not going anywhere. The Germans want this hill. It’s raining. There’s no cover. No food, and it’s nearly dark. Relax; keep your head down and dream of getting back to that gorgeous wife of yours and your new son, and the fun of starting another.”
Silence. “Sorry old chap, wrong thing to say!”

Fred, in fact, was thinking of the letter he’d received from Lily the other week full of news about his six-month-old son and wondered how she’d react to the fact that he wanted to hear news about her. His son was precious but he hadn’t even seen him yet let alone held him and he felt no bond. His only love was for Lily. Dear, precious, beautiful Lily. He hated this war and had mentioned it a number of times in his numerous letters. He longed for the old times when they were courting, just the two of them, cycling all over the English countryside. Those were carefree, idyllic times and he yearned to have them back.
“I hope Lily doesn’t misunderstand my last letter about wanting to hear news of her rather than Stephen. I’ll probably be jealous of the attention she gives him when I get back.”
“Just keep your head down old chap or you won’t be going back to have any jealous feelings.”
Hands, ripped and bleeding from scratching loose rocks together for cover, the two Coldstream Guards settled again to wait out another frigid night. During the night of November 8th 1943 the Germans launched an all-out offensive. Under heavy covering fire they forced the Guardsmen to keep their heads down but on hearing the call to improve their positions the Guards rose without hesitation from behind their meagre protective cairns as one disciplined group and drove the enemy off fighting with rifles from the shoulder and Tommy-guns from the hip. The order was to advance to the end of their endurance.
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die… ran through Fred’s mind.

Early next morning German storm troopers crawled to within yards of the makeshift forts of stone hurling grenades into them. Fred and John were the only survivors of the assault on their group. Using the rifles strewn around them, they redoubled their rate of fire to deceive the enemy.
Drinking from the water canisters of their dead comrades and rationing their food, Lance Corporal Morgan and Private Rew survived two more days and nights on Hill 819.
Bone-weary, covered in mud, and exhausted from lack of food and sleep, the two men comforted each other with dreams of what they would do when the war was over.
“Fred, what if I don’t make it……”
“Of course you’ll make it!” cut in Fred quickly. “We haven’t come this far together to give it up now! Someone knows we’re here otherwise Jerry would have attacked again. You’ll see. We’ll be relieved before you know it!”
“Yes but if I don’t make it,” John persisted, “would you visit my wife and see that my family’s cared for? Go round and visit. Tell them how it was. How it all happened?”
“You know I would but we’re going to get through this I promise you.” Suddenly becoming aware of his own vulnerability and the fact that this may be his last chance, Fred chose his words carefully. “But I suppose if the worst should happen and we don’t make it,” he said hesitantly, “maybe we should visit each other’s family.”
Both Guardsmen prayed to their own God for a safe return but both held private fears that this was to be the end. No one was coming for them. Jerry held the high ground. No one would be reckless enough to sacrifice an assault to save a few scattered guardsmen. They would be listed as casualties of war. Collateral damage. Expendable. Fred clutched his precious photo inside his battledress jacket, closed his eyes and prayed that he might survive this last ordeal and live to see his wife and son.
On the night of November 10th an allied regiment relieved the Grenadier Guards on top of Bareback Ridge but still had to reach those scattered few stranded on Hill 819. Light Infantry on a mule track attacked the Germans on Hill 819 and against all odds drove them back and the situation was saved. One Coldstream Guard didn’t make it. Struck by a stray bullet he died in the arms of his friend.

~Steve M.”

NORA’S HERO

“You know I wish I could say I have the worlds best father, but everyone thinks they have a terrible father or the worlds best. Some even believe they have a rather average dad. I wish I could say I had a good dad or a great dad, some days I will even go with alright. But the truth of the matter is my biological father and I just never meshed very well. Among his beliefs and the way I was raised I grew up pretty much thinking I didn’t have a father. Then eleven years ago my grandmother died and my world was lost. At the time my mother was dating this kinda “creepy” guy and even all through out the next three months when my mum was rather numb he sat next to her.

When my younger brothers had serious issues in the public school system he was always there and even if it meant him missing out of his college classes he was there for the both of the boys and my mother. A few years ago I had a rather bad fall out with my father and it ended in him kicking me out. I went to school the next day, tears in my eyes and called my mother. Woke her up at six thirty in the morning to ask her if I could come back and later that day I received a note while I was in my last class of the day.

If any of you have been married and had a great memory of the proposal it was kinda like that when I ready the note. Everything inside of me fluttered and I felt as if everything would get better only with just a few words written on a piece of paper. “He said yes” Three words can make a persons life so much better. Three words were the start of my relationship with my step-father.

Even though we were always a low income family we were always happy, they did what they could to help me fight the fear of breathing incorrectly. And my step-father worked on patching the relationship a father and daughter should have. Over two years we grew close and learned a lot about one another, not the my favorite color is green and his is a bluish color. But we learned that we do work out pretty well. He never had a daughter and I never had anyone that cared half of a bit. See the way we all describe my father is he liked to keep his daughters as dolls. Take them off the shelf show how pretty they are and how much they listen the put us back up on a shelf. Well with my step-father, we proved him to be very wrong and at the age of eighteen I did the best thing you can give to any father. I changed my name and took his on.

It was a kind of weird few days, but in the end we sit here three years later happy for my decision. And three years later we sit here on the living room couch watching my ten month old crawling on the floor and give a smile as we both realized that my son will never have a step-father or even father as great as mine. I decided that mine was so great when I was pregnant that I named my son after him, just switched around the vowels.

Does that tell you why I love my step-father, he is one of the few males in this world that can look at a child and love them just for them as his own flesh and blood even though I will never be biologically his and neither will my son I am still his baby girl and my Poshers is still the first grandson that he is so very proud of. Five years and my step father and I have come to a point that most kids my age never come to with their parents in the entire 21 years that they have them, yet from sixteen to twenty-one he has managed to tame a terrified teenage and has managed to find the only daughter he will ever have. And the only one who loves him more then a biological.

Nora”