Why the Reticence on Father's Day?

A man in his 80s turned to me at a recent gathering and made a request that just about broke my heart.

"Could you write about Father's Day?" he said, shrugging his shoulders. "So that my daughters might remember?"

His face telegraphed the pain of a man who is afraid he's become irrelevant to the people he loves most. It was just as apparent that he had no intention of letting them know.

Driving home, I thought about all the fathers who may wait this weekend for evidence that they still matter but will act as if they don't care.

Some fathers earn the wilderness of their later years, but most spend their lives trying to be their versions of the perfect dad. How often do we let those fathers know the reach of that kind of love?

I think of the middle-aged reader who once told me he kept a pair of his late father's work boots in his office as a daily reminder of the big shoes he hoped one day to fill.

At any age, most of us want to believe our dads are heroes. Why, then, are our tributes to them often so anemic?

We make a big deal about Mother's Day in this country. Lots of flowers, presents and dinner reservations. Until recently, it was the No. 1 day for phone calls, too, but The Associated Press reported last week that Thanksgiving and New Year's Day now top that list.

That same story also reported that the largest number of collect calls used to happen on Father's Day, but cell phones, texting and e-mails — not a newfound sense of progeny responsibility — appear to have whittled away at that ranking in recent years.

Maybe some of our reticence stems from our earliest memories of mothers gushing over our smallest efforts. Moms tend to respond to every gift from their children as if it were crafted by Michelangelo and hand delivered by St. Peter strapped to a lightning bolt.

Oh, the tears, the you-shouldn't-haves, the maternal bearhugs triggering asthma attacks across the country.

My own mother's reaction was the same for everything from a silver tea service to a windup pig singing Barry Manilow: "It's exactly what I wanted."

Fathers are often more reserved, as if national security depended on their ability to keep a straight face.

My dad came from the generation of men who believed that providing for their families was like screaming "I love you!" without ever having to say a word. On Father's Day, Dad would open any number of key chains, football jerseys and argyle socks with the enthusiasm of a man preparing his will. He would flick the slightest of smiles, shift a bit in his La-Z-Boy recliner and ask, "Who wants a beer?"

Over the years, my gifts to Mom got more extravagant, while Dad usually got a card and a non-collect call, which he would greet by grousing that the last thing I should have been spending my money on was a long-distance call to him. Then he'd hand the phone to my mother.

A few months after Dad died, my sisters discovered his stacks of our cards and letters sorted and bound with rubber bands. My father even had saved my hand-drawn series from college, which depicted him in various states of snoring.

I held the dusty bundles in my hands and remembered something else about my dad. He always insisted it was my mother who needed to hear from me, but he was the one who often answered the phone.

Lately, I am crossing paths with fathers-in-action everywhere I go.

I stand in the gardening section of Home Depot and watch a man my age ask his father about fertilizer.

I unload groceries in my driveway and listen to a dad offer one tip after another as he catches his daughter's softball.

I go for a walk and overhear a father teach his son the right way to plant a garden.

"You want to keep the roots loose," he says, his hand on his son's back. "Give the legs room to grow."

Father's Day is Sunday.

Just so you know.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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