Father’s Day has never been a big deal in our house. My girls are too young to know the occasion exists, since they are still at home and sheltered from both Hallmark and earnest preschool teachers. But my legion of Single Mothers By Choice friends all have tales to tell about school projects mislabeled to “daddy” and efforts to substitute variations of grandpa and uncle on hand-written cards and macaroni photo frames. It is an annual discussion that is sometimes painful but mostly handled in stride. I’m pretty sure Jewish kids have more trouble with Christmas than fatherless children have trouble with Father’s Day, though perhaps I’m in denial.
Still, this week the significance of fathers hit home to me more than it usually does. I consider myself a jack of all trades around the house, able to either fix things myself or pay someone who can. But just as my out-of-town parents were due to arrive for Anna’s 2nd birthday, my toilet broke. Literally broke – a jagged crack down the ceramic tank that resulted in a rapid drip of water onto the bathroom floor. The toilet is old and troublesome, and I’d been removing the heavy lid to jiggle the stopper thingy, and it was clearly my clumsy and frequent intervention that strained the tank’s willingness to go on in life.
My kids were in the bathtub when it happened. As I closed the valve and mopped up the water, I was wondering if a plumber could make it before nightfall and counting the cost of a new toilet and installation. At this point in my homeownership journey, I am mostly resigned rather than panicky. But just as I was about to look up the plumber’s number, I thought of my dad. He and mom were heading my way the very next day. He’s a blue-collar guy capable of many things, from building his own house to rebuilding cars. Plumbing is not his favorite – typically wet and dirty work in a confined and dark space – but he’d installed my parents own toilet probably more than once. I phoned mom and she called off the plumber. Dad will do it, she said.
And so I wait for their arrival and experience a mostly unfamiliar feeling that someone will take care of this problem for me. Maybe others have a husband – or a wife, sexist me – who routinely solves the household problems in life. A handy spouse seems like a handy idea, if I liked the idea of a spouse in the first place. Most of my friends, however, don’t really have handy spouses, just partners who would be willing to help call a plumber. For the most part, we are an urban, educated generation with no marketable skills at all.
Except for my father. He can do nearly anything that needs to be done that takes know-how and a strong back, or he knows someone who will do it for a reduced rate. He has rescued me before – from my first and only (knock on wood) car accident, when he called his tow truck friends for me and negotiated a wink-and-a-nudge repair job. He and mom moved me and my possessions several times in my youth. He often washes (and waxes!) my car when it is in his driveway, and installed my new wash machine about this time last year when his visit also coincided with calamity.
So while I don’t mourn a daddy for my children and am confident their needs are being met so far, as best I can, with room for error, I am reminded this week of what they won’t have when they are young women and older adults, with a broken toilet or smashed car, and no father to call for help. I hope they’ll call me, of course. I can fix many things and I’ll pay for the plumber if I can’t. But for Father’s Day this year I’ll take some extra time picking out the card for my dad, and hoping he’ll still be around when my girls need a grandpa to fix their troubles.