I will celebrate this
Father’s Day by cashing in what’s left of my retirement
account so that I can — once again — go to court to request more
time with my kids. My almost 10-year status as a non-custodial
parent has helped me become accustomed to the almost insurmountable
odds and legal fees that many parents like me face as they try hard
to maintain a loving relationship with their children.
Every morning when I read the paper, I find myself envying parents
whose lives are so intertwined with their children that they have
the luxury of feeling daily concerns about school funding, drugs,
gun control and a healthy environment. It was painful, but
I’ve long given up on the idea that through my wholehearted
— though infrequent — parenting, my daughter will be a concert
violinist at age 12, or that we’ll ever be like other
outdoorsy families tromping off routinely with our back-packs or
cross-country skis.
When I do get to see my children,
I’ve tried to redeem my absent parental status through
barrages of hiking, camping and backpacking. During the first
Father’s Day after my divorce, I will never forget how many
Father’s Day wishes I received while hiking in the steep
forests of Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge. I guess I stood
out: I was carrying a 1-year-old son on my back and 3-year-old
daughter in my arms.
Then there was the time in late June
2006 when I decided we’d take a backpacking trip in the Eagle
Cap Wilderness outside of Halfway, Ore. My 9-year-old son wanted so
much to go that we overcame two flat tires, ferocious swarms of
mosquitoes and three-foot drifts, only to be turned back by
voluminous snow at the trailhead. Still, it was exhilarating, and
that night, exhausted, we camped out on Forest Service land near a
creek and relived the day’s adventures.
That was
the pattern – what my ex-wife called “the sensory
over-stimulation tour” — always outdoors and intense and
fun. Then, my new wife and I moved to Utah, and the time between
visits to the children in Oregon began to stretch out
uncomfortably. We made the trip to the Northwest this Memorial Day,
though, and even while it rained, which you can always count on in
Oregon, I was still treated every night to my daughter’s
life-giving hugs and picked up where my son and I had left off
reading to each other every night. The trip reminded me of past
backpacking trips where my daughter showed a naturalist’s
bent, and her brother exhibited a reckless derring-do on the trail.
Father’s Day was the brainchild of Sonora Smart
Dodd, a woman who wanted to honor her father, a widower who raised
his children alone while tending a farm. Since that first
Father’s Day observance began in Spokane, Wash., in 1910,
marriages in America have been rocked by divorce, with almost 50
percent of all marriages failing, and spouses choosing to break up
their families. From my point of view, it’s sad times when a
biological father can be limited by court decree to seeing his
children only on weekends or occasional holidays.
Our
legal “get-out-and-leave-your-wallet-at the door”
approach to divorced fathers can be punitive, but there’s one
thing it can’t destroy or diminish, at least in my case, and
that’s persistence. The struggle to stay connected may even
make for better fathers; I certainly hope so. Perhaps the attempts
to do things together — to make memories from hikes and friends
and even vacations that go awry — send a message that we do this
out of love.
When my children are old enough to
understand, I hope I can look them in the eye and tell them that,
like Dodd, I never gave up.
Harold Shepherd is a
contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News
(hcn.org). He works for several conservation organizations from his
home in Moab, Utah.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
