Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Have a good Father's Day weekend

This is from this month's newsletter. Some of you may not have signed up to recieve my newsletter, so I wanted to be sure the dads knew I am thinking about them. ((hugs)) I'm going to be out of town until Monday, so have a great weekend.

I want to wish a gentle Father's Day to all the dads out there. You know who you are. Most of my readers are women, I suspect. But sometimes the men show up.

Grieving dads have a hard time- they are supposed to be 'strong' and often feel their role is to 'fix stuff'. Yet how do you 'fix it' when a baby dies? Impossible. So they put on their game face and hang tough. And then their wives accuse them of not grieving, or not caring.

It's a tough spot to be in.

Men grieve differently than women. I'm not a man so can't claim to be an expert on this. But I know I grieve differently than my husband. I spend hours online reading message boards and blogs. I make scrapbooks. I wear jewelry in memory of my baby. I cry.

He does none of these things. At least not when I can see them.

But he goes along with my projects. We've done March of Dimes. He designed my logo for my site. He lets me shut down when I need to, he gets the balloons for our balloon releases. He does what he needs to and lets me do what I need to.

So big ((hugs)) to all you dads out there. I hope this weekend is an ok one for you. Go do something manly with a hammer or some sort of power tools. Go golfing. Play some sort of zombie shooting video game. Whatever you want.

peace-
emily

4 comments:

Holly said...

Normally my husband and I don't get each other gifts for birthdays and holidays. But this Father's Day I got him a suncatcher from My Forever Child to remember Carleigh. It hangs in his work car and he sees it every day. Everyone always thinks of me when they get stuff and I wanted him to be remembered too.

Lechelle said...

My husband shows his strong side, and when I get sad he tries to fix it by trying to make me laugh. I've been having a lot more strong times than sad times lately, and I think that has given him permission to show his sadness, now that he thinks I won't break if he does. (even though I've always told him it's ok, he thinks he's doing what's best for me)

This father's day was really hard for my husband. What I should say is this father's day he showed how hard it was for him. I found him in our baby's room, curled up on the glider. So I just held him. Then instead of a father's day card I wrote him a letter, detailing all the ways he is a good father to the babies that left us and the babies that will someday come. And the presents I got him made him laugh. I figured that's what he would want, and I think I was right.

Debby@Just Breathe said...

I just wanted to say that I stopped by after seeing your button on Holly's blog. Hope you don't mind. I have a new blog called FOR YOUT TEARS. I am going to put your button up if that's okay. Please visit my blog:
http://wwwforyourtears.blogspot.com/

Jen said...

I let fathers day go for a week or so this year, because we lost our baby girl two days after father's day, but I am glad for this post and glad for the dad who has been solid for me when I know he is hurting on the inside.