You thought last year was a one-time thing, didn’t you? Wrong! Happy Father’s Day 2025!

For whatever reason, my mind associates you with this holiday. Part of the association, sure, is you losing your father. I think about that loss, and I hope you are doing as well as you can with it. But also there’s that still-vivid image of you being a father in your backyard with xxxxxxxxx in his karate outfit. There is xxxxxxxxx: man, father, husband, strong and vulnerable, and trying to do what is right.

Of course basically everyone is trying to do what is right… but some think more deeply, try a little harder, and are more open to discussing their uncertainties about what, exactly, defines “right.” Package these distinct behaviors together, and future efforts will likely improve. Never to perfect, obviously. Never guaranteed to be linear either. Just an overall arc that justifiably induces pride.

You would not have been proud if xxxxxxxxx was in the sixsome (!!!) golfing in front of me at xxxxxxxxx a few Sundays ago. The course is slammed. And even if it wasn’t, the fact that I’m waiting to hit should be a blaring signal to (a) break up the group or (b) let me to play through. The sixsome chooses to (c) ignore everyone but themselves.

I’m pretty skeptical of anger’s effectiveness to persuade—especially so with college dudes. My playing partner doesn’t agree and promises to aggressively confront the sixsome at the next tee box. Fine. I’ll let him take the lead.

Except that in an act of great ignominy, he says nothing as we leave one green and stand a mere 10 yards from the sixsome’s in-process tee shots. Fine. I’ll handle this. It’s a par-5. Both groups are now out in the fairway. We are on foot. So, I pick a kid and traverse the 100 yards to have a discussion. I’m calm. I’m not looking forward to this, but “responsibility” to myself and my group demands action. We lock eyes, and I see the meekness. This is not some punk who plays by his own rules, no, this is a kid who was “raised right” and knows his error. He’s overwhelmingly apologetic and we play through.

After hitting my next shot I thought of you and fatherhood. I thought this: all the clichés about always say sorry are correct but incomplete because they send the message that you apologize for others not for yourself, and even though, yea, we have more clichés like the truth will set you free, we really need to combine them to deliver the point that you should say sorry as soon as that guilty feeling appears instead of waiting for an apology request because, ultimately, you are saying sorry for yourself, not to appease others. You get good enough at this, and you’ll be copping to blunders previously unknown to others. Again, you are doing this for yourself, to free the mind from taxing rumination and to uphold a standard of excellence. A nice byproduct is people will view you as honorable; lame forced apologies never earn this treatment.

However random thoughts may be, surely the fact that I effortlessly picture you being similarly honorable led my mind to you. “Hey guys, before we start this meeting I just want to say that…” “Hey honey, the other day I shouldn’t have…” “Hey xxxxxxxxx, the more I thought about it, you were correct when…” And I’d like to think that if xxxxxxxxx caved to the peer pressure—nobody is immune—and initially played as a sixsome, he would soon remember his father, the examples and the lessons, and let me play through before I asked. Tiny acts can still be heroic.