Jackson Free Press

Father's Day over the last five years has been a struggle for me. To explain, let me go back five and half years ago.

In the middle of the night in late December 2007, I found myself racing through what seemed like half the towns in the metro area, headed to the hospital where my wife was having an emergency C-section.

I was excited for the birth of our first child even with the scary events that late night. I always wanted to be a father, and I hoped I could be just half as good as my father at fatherhood.

I waited outside while my mother-in-law was with my wife during the procedure.

Pacing a rut in the carpet as I went up and down the hallway, I waited to greet my son. I became alarmed as I saw doctors and nurses begin to race in and out of the room my wife was in.

Two days before Christmas, I learned that my first and only son came into this world and left it in the same day.

Losing our child nearly destroyed our relationship. It took a long time for my wife and I to let go of the anger and hurt losing our son caused us.

My wife and I always thought of ourselves as a mother and father, but couldn't celebrate Mother's or Father's Day because of the pain involved. My father helped me through those tough days with sound advice and timely words of encouragement when I needed them the most.

It took us nearly four years to regain the strength to try once again to have another child. Last November, my wife and I were blessed with the birth of our first and only daughter.

I felt that hole in my heart partially fill up as our daughter filled a piece that was missing in our loving family.

My dad and I would also have another thing to bond us and unite us as men. This would be the first Father's Day I would get to spend with my dad when we both would be fathers. My father helped me through the loss of my son, bonded with me through sports (my playing in high school and later both of us watching sports together) and was there at the birth of my daughter with a smile on his face I don't think I had ever seen before that day.

But alas, the fates can be cruel.

My father passed away suddenly this February before we could have that first Father's Day together as fathers. Now, I enter fatherhood without one of my greatest resources when it comes to figuring out how to be a dad.

As a father, my dad raised three girls into beautiful, smart, independent and strong-minded women (with the help of my mother, of course). I knew he would be invaluable to me as I try to raise my little girl, just as much as my mom would be to me.

My father was not just a father to me. He was my role model, he was my mentor and, most of all, as I grew older, he was my best friend.

Sports were a big bonding factor between us. Nothing bonded us more than football and our love--or at times our infuriation--for the Dallas Cowboys.

I will never forget buying tickets to one of the preseason games played in Jackson many years ago. The memories my little brother and I made with our dad that night will last us a lifetime. They are just some of the thousands of memories we have and will remember this Sunday.

This Father's Day, I will have a heavy heart as a son and as a father. It will be bittersweet to have my daughter with me this Sunday but be missing my dad and my son.

I will pass on memories of my dad to my daughter and pass along his love of the Cowboys to her as well.

Take my advice, please: Children, spend as much time as you can with your fathers, and fathers, spend as much time as you can with your children.

Spend that time in person with each other, or on Facebook, or on the phone, or through email--but take the opportunities you have to be with each other.

Because if there is one thing I know, our time in this world is fleeting and can be over at any moment.