Ok, it is late, and I just got home after a delayed flight back from Texas, so I’m going to keep this one short.

Years back, when I first started teaching, I would get my students to think about how we define the verbs “to mother” and “to father” in English, and what this might say about our cultural assumptions regarding gender roles and parenting. It was a pretty useful exercise.

I’d like to think that, for all the mistakes and missteps I make along the way, I try to model for my sons–and my daughter–a much broader definition of what it means to father a child.

Today, we had an hour or so to kill before my oldest boy had to compete in speed finals. We found a bookstore not too far away from the gym, with a coffee shop inside it. My son asked if he could borrow a few dollars and wandered off through the store.

We met back by the coffee shop–I got myself a coffee and got my son a hot chocolate. And he gave me the Fathers Day card he had just picked out for me.

At first, I was planning on sharing with you what he wrote–and how in just a few sentences he managed to express so well what being a father means to me.

But I think I’d like to keep what he wrote to me just between the two of us, if that’s OK with you. I’ve shed a lot of paper over the past few months, but this card I’m planning to keep.

Even with the airport delay, I think today might have been the best Fathers Day ever.