Fatherhood is a God-given privilege, a special treasure.
A little baby is a bundle of joy to bring home. It's wonderful to gaze down at this beautiful thing we call life.
But fathering a child and being a father are two different things.
"Any fool can have a child. That doesn't make you a father," Barack Obama said last year at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago. "It's the courage to raise a child that makes you a father."
Unfortunately, many men who father a child are not fathers.
Fortunately, many men are fathers to children they didn't father.
Thank God for stepfathers, adoptive fathers, grandfathers, uncles and other men who step up and serve as "real" fathers. Every person reading this can cite an example of someone who fits this description.
There is no question that many women have been both successful breadwinners and model parents, as they have had to assume that responsibility without a husband and father in the home. More often than not, it does not come without sacrifice and a high personal cost to the mother.
But when a father or father figure is not present, the odds are higher that children will suffer emotionally. Statistically kids with involved fathers do better in school, have healthier self-esteem and are more apt to avoid high-risk behaviors.
Fathers are often characterized in the media as either 1) bumbling and irresponsible or 2) all knowing and perfect.
Real fathers are neither. They are human beings with strengths and weaknesses.
Today's column is dedicated to one of those men who is spending his first Father's Day in heaven.
He was born in Defiance two weeks after the stock market crashed in 1929. Like many of his buddies, he was proud to be raised on the city's east side.
During his younger days he was affectionately known by family and friends as "PeeWee." But I came to know him as simply, "Gilly."
He graduated from Defiance High School in 1947 and served in the U.S. Army for two years. He played for the Diehl Beer fast-pitch softball team and was an avid Detroit Tigers fan. His love for baseball manifested itself in the naming of his two sons after Stan Musial and Ty Cobb.
In later years, he secretly enjoyed watching one of them grow up to be an Ohio State football fan and the other become a staunch supporter of the University of Michigan. He gleefully watched as this conflict-ridden dichotomy became a family spectacle and conversation piece every November.
An electrician by trade, he was the first person to complete the journeyman electrician's program at General Motors Central Foundry back in the mid-1950s. He later worked for Kaduk Electric in Hicksville and operated his own business.
Far more than any conduit he wired, he put a charge into anyone he came in contact with through his twinkling eyes and devilish grin. He relished stirring up controversy by playing devil's advocate to two opposing sides on any subject, whether it involved sports, politics or the best route from Defiance to Fort Wayne (always through Hicksville).
Even now, almost a year after his passing, the mere insertion of his name into any conversation causes people to smile.
In addition to two sons, he was a wonderful and loving father to three daughters. I was fortunate to become a member of his family by marrying the middle one.
"You did me the biggest favor of my life by taking her off my hands," he jokingly told me on many occasions.
Truth be told, I was the lucky one.
He was a real man, a real father, someone who took his parental responsibilities seriously and lived that way the rest of his life.
Happy Father's Day, Gilly.