It’s been called the Second Christmas for all the men’s gift-oriented industries. We celebrate it as Father’s Day — a permanent national holiday signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1972. Sonora Smart Dodds, wanting to honor her own father who was a Civil War veteran and a single parent who raised his six children, was the first to propose the idea in 1910.

The number of ties, socks, cologne, shirts, grills, and coolers bought since then would probably fill the Grand Canyon! If you think about it, the ties always go out of style, the socks lose a mate or get a hole, the cologne empties, the shirts fade, the grills rust and the coolers leak. The wrapped gifts we intend to give to dads just don’t last.

God listed the best gift in his list of Ten Commandments.  It’s #5 – “Honor your father and mother.” It’s impossible to box and/or wrap honor. It’s one of those living gifts we are taught in our beginning years as obedience. Wise lessons in submission to parents pay tremendous dividends while accruing stockpiles of respect for parents. That respect also translates as honor we extend to parents.

I respected and honored my parents, but in commemorating Father’s Day, I will reflect on “Daddy,” as I always called him. “My old man” has never ventured within miles of my lips. He was Daddy — always strong, taller than most men in my childhood with muscular, tanned arms that lifted me onto the tractor to help him steer. He was Daddy whose robust snores scared many a monster from my bedroom across the hall. He was Daddy who helped me with my math problems instead of watching TV. He was Daddy with king-size hands that he used for my support and protection much more than for discipline.

That was the mystery. His love formed a connection from my heart to his that I treasured. His word was law, but I obeyed it because I knew it was always for my good. It would have grieved me to even think of disappointing his expectations of me. I’m certain that Father’s Day wouldn’t be a one-day calendar event if all dads were like mine because I celebrate my daddy every day through warm and lasting memories.

In retrospect, I realize that all dads didn’t or don’t earn honor and respect from their offspring like mine did. I’m sorry for them and their children. God surely is too. That has to be why all of His children, with great love and honor, can call Him Abba, Father.

Letters to Camille Anding can be sent to P.O. Box 551, Brookhaven, MS, 39602, or e-mailed to camille@datalane.net.