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My Pop



Sometimes when my mom sees how involved I am with taking care of my kids, she will say something to my dad about how he did not change the diapers, or something along those lines, when my brother and I were babies.

My dad was the breadwinner of our family, so naturally he did not do as much of the dirty work with parenting as my mother did. Sometimes though, I think she does not give him enough credit. I have no memory and no idea about who changed all the diapers, but I do have photographic evidence that my dad was an active and involved dad.

In this picture, my dad, Patrick James Augustine, is feeding me. I am, according to the back of the picture, nine months old here. Not too far from the age that Tsunami is currently.

I have plenty of other photographic evidence that my dad was involved in my brother and my childhood as well, but not even this picture is needed in reality.

There is no way that I would be near the dad I am today without him. He showed me a lot of things that I did not even realize I took in until I became a dad. Every time that I go out hiking on some trail with Jupiter and Tsunami, I think of many things that my dad taught me and my brother when he took us out to discover nature. On a daily basis, there are so many little things that I remember my dad doing for me as I am doing for them my kids.

His interest in astronomy is one gift that he gave me that I now happily share with Jupiter and hope to someday with Tsunami. I can remember the first time I saw an eclipse and he started taking basketballs, baseballs, and soccer balls out to help explain what was going on. He really took the time to make sure I was getting what he was saying. I appreciated that.

I do not think that my dad reads my blog, but I hope he has a good Father's Day, because if anyone has earned it, he has.
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