It’s typical at the end of the school year for kids to make some type of little Father’s Day gift in class for their dads. School gets out in June and Father’s Day follows shortly after. It may come out of their backpacks immediately when they come home and be given to dad or it may come out of their backpacks and hidden until that special day. Or it may stay crumbled up in the backpack, forgotten about, yet the thought was there. The care and the love of a child for his or her father.
Mike was killed 5 days before Father’s Day. Josh had already made a Father’s Day card for him during the last days of school. It was hidden in his room. He was waiting to give it to his dad on Father’s Day. I didn’t know he made this card. I didn’t know he had taken the time to hide it.
On one of the days following June 14th Josh remembered that card he had made. He came across it and brought it to me. I remember him being really frantic and worried. He said, “I didn’t get to give Dad his Father’s Day card! How am I supposed to give it to him?”
This was one of those many times when I had to hold myself together and calmly tell my son that it’s okay. Daddy knows everything. He’s in heaven with Jesus so he knows you made that card for him and I am positive he loves it. Once the worry left my boy’s face I had to take a deep breath to keep myself together. Something, which in those few days since Mike died, I had trained myself to do in order to remain calm in front of the boys, yet on the inside I was furious that Mike wasn’t going to get to see that special card.
But this card said it all. It showed how proud he was of his dad for being a police officer, a police dad. It showed how much he adored him and how confident he was in his dad. He knew his dad was good at his job, the best. Ending with “be safe” shows that tiny fear in the back of a police officer’s kid’s mind that he may never mention, yet it’s there. These kids know their mom or dad has a dangerous job and no matter how proud they are of them they still just want their mom or dad to be safe and come home at the end of their shift.
My boy is still so proud of his dad. He still thinks that he is the best officer there is. His room is a shrine to his dad. He has his awards and his pictures everywhere. But more than that, he genuinely loves and adores his dad and that will never change.
I will always treasure this Father’s Day card he made for his dad. This picture says it all.
