Father’s Day is the perfect occasion to express feelings of gratitude and thankfulness to every dad, both living and deceased. Though the day is celebrated with enthusiasm in present times, it wasn’t always that way. Father’s Day celebrations had a very modest beginning. In fact, the idea is said to have come from Sonora Dodd who while listening to a sermon on “Mother’s Day” in church, wondered why there wasn’t a special day to celebrate dad. So to pay tribute to her father, Sonora held the first Father’s Day celebration on the 19th of June 1910, on the birthday of her father.
In 1913 a bill was officially introduced and the idea approved by President Woodrow Wilson three years later in 1916. In 1924 a National Father’s Day Committee was formed, however, it took Congress thirty years to give recognition to Father’s Day; and another 16 years passed before President Richard Nixon established the third Sunday of June, as a permanent observance day.
Therefore, in recognition of all fathers throughout the world please enjoy the word of Nicolas Gordon:
Fathers are forever. Even death,
Although a distancing, does not divide
The child from a parent, nor does time,
However long, nor space, however wide,
Enduring beyond silence, beyond breath,
Resonant where hours cease to chime,
Some yearning inconsolable abide.
Michael Escamilla,
Executive Director,
Kirby Pines