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Tomorrow is Fathers’ Day –

for anyone who might still want to buy a card or a gift.

Like most of the people I knew growing up,

relations with both my parents were happy and healthy:

the normal emotional moments

amidst the normal setting and pushing of boundaries but

nothing there wasn’t more than enough love to see us through.

So it took a pastoral experience early on in my ordained life

to bring home not only how appreciative I should be

but how others had not nearly so much to be thankful for.

It was a conversation to arrange a funeral service.

Once hymns and readings and everything else were in place

the eldest son spoke calmly, politely and seemingly on behalf of his siblings:

please feel free to say whatever you like about my father,

but if at any point you say he was a good man

I shall walk out.