Because of Love

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This week, I made a concerted effort to pay attention to the little things. To the way the grass moves when there is a slight breeze. To the sounds of birds in the early morning. I even started paying attention to the sound of the quiet in my home. It sounds like air breathing. It sounds like cracks in the wood floor. It sounds, well, like silence.

Being curious about the little things this week made me feel deeply grateful for this wild and precious life. I'm grateful to be able to notice that the wind moves the grass to and fro. I'm grateful that the birds seem joyful in a world that feels so fearful. And I'm grateful that I can notice quiet when most people feel overwhelmed by how noisy our world has become.

I know it's noisy. I feel that too.

But I've learned something recently. When the noise gets to be too much—when I find myself going down the rabbit hole of things I don't understand and people I no longer recognize—I must stop myself. Or more specifically, I must stop my mind from going there and return to my heart instead. It’s at these moments that I return to the slow sound of my breath, to the grass, to the birds, and to the quiet around me and within.

Gratitude does that for you. It brings you back to what is real and what really matters. It brings you back to the people and moments that remind you why you are here.

This week, I am in Minneapolis at the Special Olympics USA Games. And I am grateful to be here. Picture it for a moment: thousands of athletes who have spent their lives being told what they cannot do are now proving that they can. They’re running, jumping, swimming, winning, losing, and trying again. They are surrounded by coaches and volunteers and families who show up not because they have to, but because they want to. Because love brings them here.

I felt my body relax the moment I arrived at the games. I relaxed because I knew I was among like-hearted people and was where I was supposed to be. Despite everything going on out there—and plenty is happening that I find confusing and painful and hard to stare down directly—here, in this place, something else is going on. That thing is hope. Hope is on display here. So is humanity. People are showing up for each other with love in their hearts and joy in their voices. I come back to this every time I need to remember what is real.

I saw that kind of love this week when I sat down with ABC news anchor Bill Ritter, who bravely announced his Alzheimer's diagnosis on air last week. He told me about the overwhelming outpouring of love and support he has received since sharing his news with the world.

This weekend is also Father's Day. And so I find myself thinking about fathers everywhere. I am grateful for what I witnessed up close this past week: my son-in-law (whose birthday it is today—happy birthday, Chris!) working hard at fatherhood in the most beautiful and ordinary ways. I watched him try to do his daughter's hair. He got yelled at for not doing it right. I watched him teach his kids to fish, to be brave enough to go tubing, to try things that scared them. I watched him in the thick of it—striving, trying, messing up, trying again, smiling, doing—and my heart was so full that I didn't quite know what to do with it. Tom Rath writes about this beautifully in today's Sunday Paper, reminding us that the moments our children treasure most are usually the simplest ones.

That is fatherhood. Not the Instagram version. The real one. The messy, imperfect, showing-up-anyway version.

Today I think of my four brothers (all fathers themselves), who show up every day to teach, protect, love, and stand by their children. They take their fathering very seriously, and their kids are lucky they do.

I think of my kids' dad today as well. And I think of my sons and the fathers I believe they will become. I pray I am alive long enough to witness that, because I know they will both be incredible fathers. I know this with my whole heart.

I’m also leaving room in my heart for the fathers for whom this day is complicated. The ones who are separated from their children and wonder about them today. The ones experiencing their first Father's Day without their own father, navigating a grief that has no road map. The ones who had complicated relationships with their fathers and are still, quietly, working through what that means. My heart expands for all of them. It truly does.

As for me, I have been wondering lately about my own father. I’ve been wondering what our relationship might have been like had he been a young father today, in a time when men are not only expected to provide but to be present. To do the hair. To show up at drop-off. To sit with their daughters and just listen.

When I was growing up, my dad was out in the world doing enormous things like launching the Peace Corps and fighting the War on Poverty. The culture of that time didn't ask men to be present in the quiet, daily ways we ask of fathers today. Nobody was talking about girl dads when I was a young girl. Nobody told Sargent Shriver that being present at home was just as important as being present in the world. His entire generation was never given that message.

I wonder what might have been different had he been told that his presence mattered in his daughter’s life as much as it did in his sons'. I wonder what might have been different in my life had I seen the support he gave my mother as a sign of real strength. I wonder what he would have said to me when I got divorced. What words he might have found that would have comforted me, assured me, and strengthened me. I wonder what he would say to me today about the life I'm living. I wonder what he would think of the way young men are showing up today as fathers.

I really wish I could sit down on this day and talk to my dad. About his life. About how he really felt about being a dad. What he wishes he had done differently. What he was happy he did. How he truly felt.

And then, as life would have it, this week I started going through old boxes that had been in storage. As I opened one up, the first thing that fell out was a letter from my father, written in his immaculate longhand (because he always wrote by hand, and his letters were always beautiful).

It was a birthday letter. And this is what he said:

Happy birthday, darling. I thank God for giving me such a magnificent daughter. You are truly an intelligent, honest, beautiful human being… You have been a joy to me every day of your life. I hope you will always remember that. I love you. God bless you. All my love, Daddy.

I sat on the floor holding that letter for a long time.

On Father's Day weekend, my father reached across time and answered the question I didn't know I had been asking. How did he really feel? What would he have said to me about being my dad? He had already said it. I just had to find it.

That is what gratitude does, I think. It opens you up enough to receive what is already there. It slows you down enough to find the letter in the box. It quiets you enough to hear the birds, feel the breeze, and witness the grass moving. And sometimes, if you are very lucky and very still, it lets your father find you one more time.

So on this Father's Day, I want to say so much more than simply "Happy Father's Day." To those I love who are fathering on the front lines of humanity: I want you to know that I see you. I am proud of you. I know you are trying. I know it can sometimes be hard. I know how daunting it can be when you are in the thick of it. But keep going. It matters so much. It truly does.

To those in pain today: I see you too. I feel you. I'm sorry that today brings up feelings that are painful. Know that there is support for you too.

And to those I wish were still here but are now in heaven looking down: I feel you. I carry you. You shaped me more than you knew.

And to my own father: thank you. For the letter. For the longhand. For finding me this week when I needed you. Letters are invaluable. They keep feelings alive long after someone is gone. Thank you for writing. For trying. For being you. We all need the love of a father.

P.S. Go find an old box this weekend. You never know what might fall out of it, or who might be waiting inside to remind you that you are loved.

Also in this week’s issue:

• What Your Kids Actually Remember About Growing Up

• Longest-Running Local News Anchor in the Country Announces Alzheimer’s Diagnosis on Air