About my Dad

Father’s day is coming up. 

Again. 

I haven’t written much since my Dad passed a couple years ago. In large part, that is because I am a student… again. Because you should go get a master’s degree in your late 40s. It’s the best idea ever. Definitely, it has nothing to do with your dad dying.

But, everything is suddenly happening.  

And, I often find myself thinking… WWDT? What would Dad think? He was the best thinker, honestly.

My kids and I had the opportunity to join a Black Lives Matter demonstration in our safe little town. It was wonderful. Absolutely. I am so proud of us. I’m proud of my kids for agreeing immediately that we should go to it when I presented the idea. I’m proud of my youngest for chanting along to the call-and-response of the crowd at the demonstration, even when no one was looking at him. He was invested and he got us into it. I’m proud of me for winning the BEST PARENT OF THE YEAR award I gave myself for having the kids make signs and taking them to the demonstration, all on my own, with my husband out of town. I’m proud of my mostly very white, upper middle class town for giving a fuck. A sincere one. We cleared our Sunday evenings, y’all, and we have craft beers to drink and social media to attend to

But someone is missing. Dad would have been so invested. Dad was a young lawyer in the 60s. Can you imagine? The 60s. Black Panthers. Martin Luther King, Jr. Voter rights. School integration. Segregation. This was not that long ago. So Dad, being a young lawyer, went to work for the Justice Department in D.C. And that sentence… I can’t tell you how my heart bursts with pride to write it. My dad, Bob Atmore, a new lawyer, went to work with the Justice Department in Washington D.C. during the Civil Rights movement. Who does that?

So he walked with Selma, and he was there as a government representative to witness lawfulness. His job was to represent the federal government as a witness to legality.

Something my dad gave me was a respect for the law. A respect for the thinking about the law of our country. It is sometimes difficult to have a tiny lawyer brain on one shoulder, and a tiny educator, writer, fierce children’s rights activist mamma bear brain on the other. The most powerful thing is when those brains come together. Then I’m sad, because I know I will never live up to my potential. And I know my dad knows that too. But I will try.

So my thoughts about father’s day are:

1:  I will try, Dad. 

2: F-you for dying. All you had to do was go to the doctor, but you said no.

3: I understand why you did not go to the doctor.

4: Go to the doctor. Be courageous enough to face truths.

5: Five things is enough for anyone. Five steps. One at a time.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
and twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not be but gay,
in such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
what wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.