It’s Father’s Day and, whether it is a Hallmark holiday or not, it’s a time that allows us to reflect on the fathers in our life. It’s a good time for me to do that, having just come home from a visit with my youngest son, his wife and their 10 week old baby. I loved watching this new father interact with his son, loved seeing the total joy and profound connection, of course coupled with the exhaustion of having an infant! I remember seeing the same joy in his brothers with their children and see it still as their children grow,

Maybe it was the era in which I grew up, maybe it was because my dad was 50 when he became a father for the first time, maybe the cultural norms were different, but we didn’t grow up with the kind of involvement that we had with our kids or that our children have with theirs. There is no question that our parents loved us but we were not the center of all things, as our kids were and grandkids are. Have a game or school event? Likely we walked there and might have been picked up later. There were no parents standing on the sidelines to watch and cheer. It just wasn’t the way it was done. My parents may have asked if homework was finished but no one checked it over or talked us through the tough math problems. And when I wrote and submitted my college essays? That was my responsibility without anyone else discussing them with me or even proofreading. Different world and different experience, no judgement on that—just reality.

That does not mean, however, that there were not expectations. My father, in fact, was the master of expectations for both my brother and me. I always thought that Dad pushed me harder as the eldest but, as I think about it now, I realize that we both own that. I wanted to please and meet his expectations so I strove to do that. In some ways I still do.

Dad would see a report card and rather than praising an “A” would ask why it was not an “A+.” He would question why a score of 95 was “not 100.” There was no doubt about either of us going to college. That was a given and it never occurred to us to challenge it. He had expectations about our appearance as well. I remember walking home from school on many a snowy winter day, opening the door to our house and my dad saying (before I even had my coat off) “Why isn’t your hair combed?” He bought all of my clothes as a child and would make me stand endlessly on a chair while he trimmed my bangs to the length he found acceptable. Perfection was always the goal.

My dad was never an easy man. I have often said that he “elevated difficulty to the level of an art form.” And in many ways that is true. He was quick to anger and slow to forgive. He would frequently get angry at Mom and not speak for days at a time. And I was the go-between, carrying messages from one to the other, from the kitchen to the living room. He was demanding and determined. He was anxious and often depressed. Many times, after Mom died, I begged him to get involved with groups, to do something other than sit in his house and listen to the news and stock reports. I didn’t know how to help. I don’t know that today, even with all of my experience dealing with older adults, I would have a better answer.

I never doubted that he loved us nor that we loved him. But I always felt there were conditions, conditions based on his expectations. I always felt that, if I disappointed him profoundly enough, he would exorcise me from his life, treating me as if I no longer existed. I don’t know that he would have but I never wanted to find out. I thought—and still think—that the possibility was real. Not that his love for us wasn’t as deep and meaningful as the love we have for our children, and their children, but it always felt conditional rather than unconditional.

I don’t see that in the way that I love my children or their children. Unconditional may be an overused term but that is what it feels like to me. Do I have expectations for them? Have I had expectations? I want them to be healthy and happy, I want them to live good lives and be good people. Maybe because of the specificity of my dad’s expectations, maybe because of the world we live in, I think more of hopes for my children, hopes for the lives they will live.

I wish I’d had the chance to talk about that, and many other things, with my dad, to be together both as parent and child but also as two adults. How much I think I would have learned, how much clarity I might have gained. I wish I’d been able to help him find peace and I wish he’d been a presence in the life of my children. Most of all, I wish I could tell him that I know he always did the best he could for us and that I am grateful, that his influence on my life informs and shapes my truly full heart.