Fathers, let your families consume you

For 35 years, my husband dreaded Father’s Day. A holiday usually celebrated with good barbecue and bad ties was a devastating reminder of his own father’s premature death — a searing fault line dividing the first decade of John’s life from the subsequent three.

The single event that would upend — and ultimately shape — this 10-year-old boy’s life also cast a dark shadow over every third Sunday of June that would follow.

This is not to suggest that John couldn’t appreciate the joy and gratitude that Father’s Day brings others. But while friends relished the day and posted sweet pictures on social media of celebrations with their fathers, he would retreat to the same sad place, privately revisiting the few cherished moments he could recall with his: planting the family’s garden, hearing his dad’s deep voice channeling Bing Crosby, and watching his father’s fingers firing away at a manual typewriter as he crafted his column for the small-town newspaper he ran. 

I married John knowing that this burden was part of who he was, and I signed onto the job — a privilege, really — of helping him carry it. What I hadn’t expected was that I would also share in his deliverance from these ghosts a little over a year after exchanging our wedding vows — when on Christmas Eve 2013, our first son, Sebastian, was born.

It came as no surprise to me that my husband who came of age without a male role model would become a living tribute to his father’s profound legacy. In fact, I’d seen telltale clues to John’s exquisite parenting skills in the way he tenderly cared for our houseful of animals. He would wake up every two hours to ensure our black lab Lola, sick with critical GI symptoms, drank enough water. When our young kitten MoJo was struck with temporary paralysis, he’d carry him up and down the stairs — again and again — as if he were the cat’s personal sherpa. This kind of soul-deep attentiveness was one of the reasons I’d fallen in love with John in the first place.

But, as any parent can attest, nothing prepares you for the birth of a first child. And in these first years of Sebastian’s young life, I have witnessed countless ways in which John has brought his own father into our world. It’s almost as if someone had pressed pause in 1978, the year his father died; and with the arrival of our tiny, beautiful boy, he was free to resume their relationship.

Among the many gifts John has carried forward are his dad’s unbound love of the outdoors; the journalist’s precision in using just the right words; his love of sports (his dad played minor league baseball); and the small-town man’s soft spot for those struggling on society’s margins. Though I’d never known Charles Barton Siniff, I felt I was finally getting to meet him through John’s unflagging devotion to being a daddy.

But even as John channels his father’s exemplary parenting, he is also mindful of bringing it into the 21st century, a time when fatherhood looks dramatically different. For all the love Charles Siniff bestowed on his family, in the last years of his life he was consumed by his work — an attribute that was culturally consistent with the times. Bound by the relentless rhythm of deadlines and the 1970s ethos that too often put distance between fathers and their families, he worked tirelessly — sometimes juggling two jobs — to provide for his eight children.

The pace of that life caught up with John’s father, as he collapsed on the family’s sidewalk in the scorching Texas heat and was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. He would undergo open-heart surgery and ultimately live for another seven weeks. He told John’s mother, through tears, that he had “wasted so much time” and vowed to be with the kids more.

He never got the chance. John still views his father’s words as an enduring gift, a reminder that life is fleeting, and as the Roman philosopher Seneca put it: “You are your choices.”

John has chosen to be the father who was taken from him, and I witness that daily: 

• In his determination to get up with our early-riser Sebastian — regardless of how sleepless the previous night had been — to spend quality time with him and set the tone for both of their days.

• In his vow to navigate his three-hour commute in and out of Washington, D.C., so that he rarely misses the boys’ bedtime routines, even if it means staying up late to finish his office work.

• In his extraordinary ability to imbue his parenting with all those ineffable qualities the job requires — playfulness, humor, discipline, curiosity, resilience, tenderness — and make it look easy. Whether he’s engendering a love of reading by using silly voices with Dr. Seuss classics (and just the right level of spookiness in Bears in the Night,) or reminding them of the many blessings they wake up to each day, John is proof-positive for our sons that you don’t have to sacrifice family or authenticity to succeed in life.

My mom once told me that one of the most beautiful things about having kids was being able to see your spouse in a whole new light as he interacts with them. I understand that now. I fell in love with a man who was shaped by crippling demons; and through our children, joy has been born from his pain. The darkness has ceded to unimaginable light.

So now this day in June — one that symbolized such isolating loss for John — is truly worth celebrating. As a family.

His dad would be so proud of him.

Read John's Mother's Day tribute to Monica here. 

More from John: We are better than our politics and Religion may be a miracle drug 

More from Monica: What Loyola Chicago means to me and You don't know this Houston

Monica Hortobagyi Siniff is a former Paste BN’s Travel editor and freelance writer whose full-time job now is raising her two young boys, Sebastian and Luke.