Fathers are Just to Love us.
Just to teach the power of Love.
Just to hold.
Just to hug.
Just to listen.
Just to tug.
Just to hear little hearts’ desires.
Just to cry to.
Just to run to.
Just to laugh with.
Just to guide.
Just to see us laugh.
Just to wish we would listen.
Just to be there when we don’t.
Just to be there when we’re happy.
Just to be there when we’re sad.
Just to be there when we’re good, ’cause Santa doesn’t see the bad.
Just to forgive.
Just to celebrate gold foil stars.
Just to hang scribblings on the fridge.
Just to single out our voice in the choir, our dance in the troupe, our instrument in the orchestra.
Just to beam seeing us in the spotlight.
Just to sweat, squint, and squirm on little league bleachers.
Just to say how well we played.
Just to forget we were called out looking; fathers never see strike three.
Just to share our first steps.
Just to see us fall.
Just to pick us up.
Just to see us fall again.
Just to help us up.
Just to see us fall again.
Just to see us finally pick ourselves up.
Just to see us run.
Just to see us happy.
Just to see us have fun.
Just to cheer us on.
Just to chauffeur us hither and yon.
Just to go three steps beyond.
Just to put a spring in our steps.
Just to put songs in our hearts and rhymes in our times.
Just to teach of the Beatles (countless others too).
Just to teach there’ll never be a day the music died.
Just to teach about Baloo.
Just to dance in a grocery store’s peanut butter aisle for no reason at all.
Just to teach that peanut butter is reason enough to dance.
Just to be patient.
Just to be silent.
Just to forgive.
Just to smile, even when it’s not easy.
Just to wish and wish, and wish again to be heard.
Just to understand and understand, and understand again when he’s not.
Just to worry.
Just to silently anchor us without our knowing.
Just to rail against.
Just to storm against.
Just to defy.
Just to break away from.
Just to cry.
Just to hold us as best he can.
Just to let us go.
Just to nudge us from the nest.
Just to see us soar.
Just to see us roar.
Just to cry at our wedding and bring back Baloo.
Just to cradle our young.
Just to do it all over; new circle begun.

I am blessed because my father just is. He just is still inside me, even though his Earth years are gone. He just still cheers me on and picks me up. We still even laugh and cry sometimes.

I hope sometimes on some days some feel I too, just am.

Glen-Peter Ahlers, Sr.