Happy Father's Day!

Bonne fête des pères!

I have been thinking about you a lot. I think one of the best parts of going through these old videos is seeing and hearing you in them. There are many different discourses in families and one that runs in ours is that you were often gone because of work or because of church responsibilities. Watching these videos when we were young, I see that although you might have been in many places, one of the most important to you was always home.

I love the video of us playing 'bumbadia' and the other wrestling games on the bed. Cavorting with laughter and losing ourselves in the fun, these are the memories with you that should arise very first. Dying easter eggs, being cheered on by you at the park, giving each of us a little stage to perform on with an encouraging audience, and always documenting these important but small moments for us was a grand gift. It is beautiful to watch these videos and expand my perspective on you as a dad, not based on my literal and limited memory of things, but based on what was really there, because I have the fortune of seeing it play again in front of me.

I love you so much Dad. I admire you more and more as I get on and get to know what people are made of and what really counts.

Love, Emilie