An Open Letter To A Loving Father: What Do I Give For Your 78th Birthday?
By John W. Fountain
By John W. Fountain
Dear Dad, I hope my note finds you well on this your 78th birthday. I can only hope that the Good Lord shows such favor to grace me too with the gift of longevity.
As we pondered sending you a gift, Monica (wife) asked, “What do you give the man who already has everything?”
I laughed but I honestly had no answer. What do you get the man who has everything?
I’m stumped.
For my own birthdays, I do not cherish parties or big fusses. I do not fancy the idea of pretend-friends wining and dining at my expense and acting like they like me. I do not enjoy big crowds or the focus being on me. Do not relish the idea of being the beau of the ball. Indeed for my forthcoming 58th birthday, I plan, if anything, to partake in a laid-back backyard celebration of grilling rituals with a few cold beers and music piping through my speakers, surrounded by only a handful of family.
“…In you I have found the substance of things hoped for, bloodlines rooted in red clay Alabama dirt, a heart steeped in a love for others and commitment to helping them find the pathway to their dreams.”
I want to sip and eat, and breathe in the last of summer’s winds, dance with the woman who for more than 26 years has been my closest friend. I want to be in the presence of my sons and my daughters and those they love. I want to let any troubles of a life lived for nearly 60 years be washed over that day by the tide of love and sweet memories made with those who love me.
But enough about me. This is your birthday.
I could buy you flowers but they will soon fade. I could buy you a bouquet of edibles that you would delight upon their devouring. Cologne or clothes or jewelry have no appeal for a man who has his own.
So what then? What?
Honestly, I don’t know. What gift do you give to a father, to the man who has made me feel at long last like some man’s son? For a man whose eyes have delighted to see me coming? Who has cheered me. Exalted. Lifted.
A man who gave me my intellectual/academic wings. Who taught me to dream. Who embraced my dream, even within the walls of improbability and impossibility, and yet cheered with me, cheered for me.
The man who showed up when I had no expectation. Who was there waiting, like a good father does for his son, when I had no inclination that you had chosen to bestow upon me the love of a father that every boy longs for. The kind of love that heals paternal holes, that heals the soul, that makes grown men whole.
The father who gave me my first kiss that said, “I adore you son.”
“You are me. I am you. We are one.”
You have given me the seal of paternal admiration. The manifestation of the glorious and incomparable bind of father & son by which generations become legacies and by which generations of fathers and sons generate new destinies.
You are the father who taught me to dream. Who showed me how to live. Who demonstrated how I should give — without regret, with my whole heart and soul, with respect for life and for humanity, even amid a world filled with so much insanity.
The beloved father who made me feel alas like a beloved son. In whose eyes I could do no wrong. The delight of his soul. The son who fed his soul.
What do I give that father for his 78th birthday?
My natural father, as you know, was born in Alabama, like you. It is not happenstance that you were led to me and I to you. That even upon his desertion by the time I was 4, God gave me men to stand in his stead. But in you I have found the substance of things hoped for, bloodlines rooted in red clay Alabama dirt, a heart steeped in a love for others and commitment to helping them find the pathway to their dreams.
Your love, honestly, has healed my paternal hurt of abandonment. And I have found in you, Paul Adams, the affirmation of me. Because of you I stand wholly as a man.
Perhaps these words written here can serve as some small gift. I can think of nothing greater given from my heart. Happy Birthday.
By the way, I was speaking to my eldest son John the other day. He was sharing good news: He and his fiancé are expecting a son. They have chosen the name, Josiah. He asked me for suggestions for a middle name. He wanted something meaningful, something that resonated with legacy.
I told him that there was a man who has been a father to me, who embraces my family and sons. The man who was there with my sons and me in the woods of Alabama during a special time and no less at the 50th anniversary of the march in Selma (Remember John’s look of terror in the dark woods that night, lol). The man who is the most loving father I have ever known — loving to me as his son. I told him that if I had another son that I would name him Paul.
So my John told me that I could tell you the news. That his son expected to be born in a few months will be called Josiah. Josiah Paul, after you, his great-grandfather. A man, a name, we want our sons and daughters for generations to remember. You chose me. And we choose you.
Love, your son JOHN