I have had a good Father\u2019s Day. I got a nice present from my daughter. My wife made an amazing breakfast for me. Later today, my father-in-law will come by for a visit. All in all, pretty good.<\/p>\n
Sure, I have a new case of pink eye, but I can handle that. After all, it\u2019s not always easy being a Dad.<\/p>\n
I learned that from the master, my father, who died in 1996. I\u2019ve now celebrated 16 Father\u2019s Days without him. The first few sucked because we did not yet have a child to distract us, but things seem to get a little more natural each year.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t dwell too much on life without my parents \u2013 Mom died in 2006. They made me who I am, and I never saw them moaning about not having their parents around so I chose that path of coping. But the reality is, I miss them terribly, especially Dad since he never met my daughter.<\/p>\n
Around Father\u2019s Day each year, the Maryland Bar Foundation gives away an award in my Dad\u2019s name. A former president of the Maryland State Bar Association, he made a significant impact in the area of professionalism and public service. Each year, a young lawyer who personifies those ideals wins what our family colloquially calls \u201cThe Pop Award.\u201d<\/p>\n
I like knowing that someone outside of our family has their professional life impacted by my father\u2019s legacy. I know he made a huge impact on my career even though he never really realized it.<\/p>\n
When Dad died, I had just made the switch from sports to news coverage at the newspaper. The hours and weekend schedule made it easier for my wife and I, who were married less than six months earlier. I had the skills for either department and wanted a more predictable schedule.<\/p>\n
What I didn\u2019t expect \u2013 and why I don\u2019t know \u2013 is that I would end up covering some share of death around this time. Fresh off the first death to really impact me, the one that naturally hits the hardest, I struggled with this part of the job.<\/p>\n
People told me they liked the stories I wrote, which made me feel a little better, but it didn\u2019t make tackling the subject any easier. I don\u2019t object to covering bad news in the paper, I just want someone else to do it.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when I realized that the reason I had so much trouble is that I could not separate the grief I felt for my loss with what other people were going through. I didn\u2019t want to write the stories because I knew they needed time to process their feelings because I needed to process my feelings. I couldn\u2019t properly tell their story if I wanted to tell mine through them.<\/p>\n
I moved back into sports after about a year and felt much better. Dad always gave me a love of sports so I could channel my feelings that way. I knew that in news, I would subconsciously make the story about my feelings, which is something that just wouldn\u2019t work. You can\u2019t write a story well if you\u2019re hoping that people will give you a hug when they really should be focused on the feelings of the subject.<\/p>\n
Even though I don\u2019t cover the news anymore, I take these lessons with me. In a roundabout way, this made me realize that I can\u2019t make my job about me. I have to make it about the people I deal with. Otherwise, I\u2019m just trying to project my feelings on them instead of telling their story, whether it\u2019s the tale of someone who died too soon, how the team won a championship or why someone\u2019s academic work matters, the thing I do most often now.<\/p>\n
So, thanks, Dad, for making me realize that to communicate, I need to shine the spotlight away from me. Of course, that rule gets suspended when I do something stupid. Then I\u2019m more than happy to make it all about me.<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have had a good Father\u2019s Day. I got a nice present from my daughter. My wife made an amazing breakfast for me. Later today, my father-in-law will come by for a visit. All in all, pretty good. Sure, I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","wpcat-16-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1860"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1862,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860\/revisions\/1862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}