To Our Fathers

People say that Fathers are the breadwinners of the family because they are usually the ones who keep track of the finances. But it is not just that.

When I was around six years old, my dad would usually be the one picking me up after class and I find myself complaining since he would park the car on the other side of the school. I was stupid, not thinking about the trouble that picking me up would cause him. I realize now that he had to put everything away so that he could rush to pick me up and had to walk twice – to get me and another to come back, not to mention that he did this every day. At ten, I asked him to teach me how to commute on my own, but he wouldn’t allow it. Not because he didn’t trust me, but because he wanted to keep me safe, so he continued to pick me up on a daily basis and I never heard a single complaint.

Reflecting on it, the things that a father will do for their child is not limited to giving material goods, but also to making sacrifices to give us the best, and the best stuff are things we usually cannot see, but feel. Like, the values that they teach us may seem little, but if we look deeper, the simple deeds that they do for our family can already have a ton of virtues underlying those deeds.

As a child, I am usually blinded by the technologies and trends around me, hoping I could learn something from them, but because of those things, I don’t appreciate my dad for the lectures he keeps on giving to my brother and me. He is the one teaching us virtues that we can use every day to help us live the life God has given us. Though, being taught these things, there is a virtue that is quite difficult for me to understand; it is sacrifice.

God offered himself as sacrifice since He loves dearly to save His children. It is the same for our fathers; usually they are the ones silently getting hurt as they sacrifice to see us happy. Let us thank God for giving us fathers who love, support and sacrifice for us, and hopefully we learn to appreciate them more. (Yvana Sulit)