Why I Changed My Mind About Celebrating Father’s Day

For many years, I never really took the whole "Father's Day" thing seriously. Of course, I would always be grateful when my sons acknowledged the day and made sure to take my dad to dinner or send him a card – but it seemed like just another invented holiday designed for commercial purposes. As far as I was concerned, a father is a father every day. They should be valued and appreciated and loved every day so there is no need for a special commemoration every year.

As I get older, and more importantly as my father gets older and more frail, I have changed my thinking on this. I have started thinking more and more about what my father has meant to me over the years, and how much he has taught me about life and what it means to be a father. Taking a special day to celebrate my dad started to seem like a great idea.

So this year I decided to pay my father a surprise visit. After my sons had given me an early Father's Day celebration, I hopped on a plane and flew out to Vancouver to see my dad. I wheeled him out of the care home where he is staying, and we went for a nice dinner and saw a movie together. We ended up talking for hours – some of the best hours we have spent together.

So my message to all the sons and daughters out there is to not let yourself become cynical about Father's Day. Yes, it's true that you don't need a greeting card company to tell you how to acknowledge your father or when to celebrate – but why pass up an opportunity to give this special person in your life a special day?

My father is a man who understands the value of the simple and important things in life. He doesn't care about obtaining more possessions or status – he is content with what he has most of the time. In fact, he is most content when he is around the people who are most important to him. I could see how content and happy he was during this visit, and that made me content and happy too. In that way, I am still learning from my father.