Shizhé'é is the word for "my father." Every language has one — the sound a child makes for the person who holds the sky up. This Father's Day, I want to say some words for mine.
His name is Frank, and I am proud of him. He took up the responsibility of fatherhood with gusto. In his younger days he worked hard and played hard — a rambunctious young man of his generation, he did it all. Then he met my mother and followed her home to the high mountain country, to a family of traditional shepherds and farmers. A city boy among the herds and the fields. He got used to it quickly. He grew on my family, and he learned the old ways.
He had four children. He accepted me as one of his own — and that is the sentence I keep coming back to, because a man who chooses a child owes nothing and gives everything.
In middle age he carried the weight of his younger years. Many times he worked long hours as a welder — sick, or bone-tired — to make sure we had a good life. He took care of my mother so she could take care of our home, all of us, and the wider family that gathered around us. He became a man with stories, with deep humor, with hard-earned experience. He became a teacher in the church, a leader in his home community, a man of moral clarity and unbending ethics. He loves the culture, and he loves the rhythm of the drum.
He is still spry of mind and spry in his leadership. Lately his health has been challenged as never before — but his spirit stays strong. He is a man of deep character, commitment, sympathy, and honor. His words carry weight in any gathering; his presence is the most honored one in the room. In his company, I feel regal.
This is the quiet work that holds a people together — not headlines, not fortunes, but a man rising before dawn to weld another day for his children. When I ask the question that guides everything I do — will this make the great-grandchildren whole, or hollow them out? — I am really asking whether we can raise more men like Frank. Fathers who choose, who stay, who teach humility and respect and humor and the beauty of a simple life. That is how a family keeps its wealth and its wisdom at home. That is how the fire stays lit across generations.
So: Happy Father's Day to my pops, and to all of you dads out there. It is an honor to have children — to raise them well, to teach them, to pass on the humility, the respect, the humor, and the simpleness. If you are a father tonight, doing this quiet, unglamorous, world-holding work: you are not alone. The circle holds.
— Tony Skrelunas