The Friday before Father’s Day
I saw a father and a grown daughter
Walking down Kimberly Avenue
He had his arm around her shoulder,
When I saw this
A sharp pain hit me across the heart
I wish I was this daughter
How lucky she is
How I long for my father to celebrate Father’s Day
I miss him so much
Weeks before Father’s Day
I hear the ads and I want to run away
I don’t want to hear or think about
Father’s Day,
When the day comes
I stay busy
And try not to feel the emptiness too much
But it still seems
So UNFAIR
Dad—I wish you were here
Carol Dreiling started keeping a journal on summer visits with her grandmother in Ohio. Her first poem was published while she was a student at Warren Wilson College in the late 1960s. A feminist newspaper in Minneapolis later published a diary she kept while working in a paper box factory. From 1999 to 2004, she edited Sporadic News, the Asheville Mushroom Club newsletter. In October 2011, WNC Woman published her article about selling gourmet mushrooms to independent restaurants.
About Father’s Day—The poem, “Father’s Day,” is included in my memoir in progress, Healing from Murder. I wrote this poem in 1991 to help me struggle with the death of my Dad.
