My dad was born about a year before the start of World War I in a poor part of Mississippi. He married my mom during the Great Depression. Their first child was born before World War II. Their second child died of leukemia shortly after World War II ended. His integrity cost him half of his billable hours as an accountant when a client said dad needed to keep a second set of books because new “investors” in the client’s business required it. He provided well for his family. He battled demons, including alcohol. He never surrendered. His life was one of comebacks. Despite it all, there was not day in my life that I felt unloved. His gravestone reads, “He left us a most noble pattern.”  There is nothing about perfection in the message.

Happy Father’s Day to you dads, whether you are, were or someday will be. May you strive to set a noble pattern.  It happens in the moments.  I call it daddin’.