Happy Father’s Day

Father’s Day is coming up, and it made me think about my father. During my childhood, we did not have a special day called Father’s Day. Instead, every day felt special when my father came home from work carrying bags of fruit and delicious treats for the family.

I am 76 years old and was born in a Middle Eastern country into a family of five girls, along with my mother and grandmother. My father lovingly called our house “Heaven” because, according to our religious beliefs, heaven is filled with beautiful angels. Since our home was filled with women and girls, he said our house was his heaven. 

I was raised with love and admiration by my father. He made each one of his daughters feel perfect, valued, and deeply loved. Whenever we were not feeling well, my father would quietly sit beside our beds, crack pistachios one by one, and feed them to us, always wanting to make sure we felt comforted, loved, and strong.  

I truly believe the love my father gave me still lives within me today. It taught me to believe in myself and to know my worth. I wish every girl could have a father like mine, because to me, he truly was perfect. 

As I grew older and learned about the history of Father’s Day, I found it very touching. Father’s Day started in the early 1900s to honor fathers and fatherhood. The idea came from a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd from Spokane, Washington. After hearing a sermon about Mother’s Day in 1909, she thought fathers also deserved a special day. Her own father, William Jackson Smart, raised six children by himself after his wife passed away. She loved and admired her father very much and wanted fathers everywhere to receive the same appreciation mothers did. 

The first Father’s Day celebration was held on June 19, 1910, in Spokane, Washington. Little by little, the idea spread throughout the United States, although some people at that time thought it was unnecessary or too commercial. Many years later, in 1972, President Richard Nixon officially declared Father’s Day a national holiday in the United States. Since then, it has been celebrated every year on the third Sunday of June. 

Today, different countries celebrate Father’s Day in different ways and on different dates, but the meaning is the same everywhere: honoring fathers, grandfathers, and father figures for their love, sacrifices, support, and guidance. 

For me, the true meaning of Father’s Day is not gifts or celebrations, but the feeling of love, comfort, protection, and confidence a father gives his children throughout their lives. My father gave me all of that, and even though he is no longer here, his love still lives in my heart every day.