Father's Day

Father is not a word with any significance in my personal vocabulary; both the men who could ever of laid claim to it fell so far short of it's worth that even contempt seems more effort than they deserve. 
But. 
This year I've found myself ruminating on the men who did impact my life, the men who helped shape me, who were there when it mattered, who did what they could. 

My long departed paternal grandfather showed me men could love, taught me values and wrapped me in a sense of safety, at least long enough to recover before I went back home. 
Dear departed Tony made me laugh. I don't know how to put a value on that for a miserable lost young boy, but I cherished it all my life. I still feel the warmth of his smile each time I laugh. 
My maternal grandfather brought me back to the folds of family. Absent for most of my youth I only came to know and love him in later life, a connection to a past neither of us really knew, palpable proof it's possible to forgive. 
But sat on a rock up on the Moor today I thought mostly of DY, my best friend's father as I grew up. I can't say we ever said much more than pleasantries for nearly all of the time I knew him. A slight man, a quiet man, an undoubtedly clever man, but in that way of a teenage boy someone I put no real effort into knowing. 
When I made found myself homeless at 16, as life veered towards a lot of bad places, just as I fell, he stepped up and caught me. Put a roof over my head, fed me, got me back into school. Later found me a flat, vouched for me, pushed me just enough. I don't think I'd ever done anything to deserve that, he did it because it was right, because he was a good man. 

As a child I never knew what a father really was, certainly it meant nothing good to me, I can't recall ever hearing it said in any way that meant anything good was going to happen. 
Now well past the half way mark of my alloted three score and ten I think I finally understand. Genetically it's but a flash of creation. Realistically it's an unknown. Finally though it's a choice I think. It's a choice about being there. Not necessarily physically, but emotionally, faithfully, wholly there for someone. 

I didn't buy a card and I've no-one left to call, but today I sat and gave thanks for all the good father's I've met along the way.