a Father’s Day Tribute to the Man behind the Camera

There aren’t a lot of pictures of my father among the old black and white photos of my family of origin, for the same reason there aren’t many pictures of me in the many albums you can look through in our home. There are thousands of photos of the four Kimmel kids (collectively and individually). There are just as many of Darcy with the four Kimmel kids. You can find them smiling into the camera at Disneyland, in Paris and London, on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, and at the hundreds of other locations that formed the backdrop to many wonderful Kimmel memories. But there aren’t many of me. It would be easy to conclude from the evidence that me and my father were not present for these Kodak moments—the birthdays, graduations, vacations, Christmases and special occasions that made up the critical years of our children’s youth. But that would be a mistake. I was there, just like my father and the countless other fathers who have very little visibility in family albums. We just weren’t in the picture. We were taking it. It is to us fathers that God has given a vital role of spending a lot of time working behind the scenes. We’re the producer, financier, cameraman, and the guy in charge of security. It is our job to make sure the on-going drama being played out at center stage in our families ultimately has a meaningful ending. Obviously, there are some family albums that don’t have any pictures of dad. Maybe he was deployed; vigilantly maintaining a post for his family as well as everyone else’s on the edge of some foreign battlefield. To him we stand and salute. Maybe he had passed away. To him, we bow our heads and remember. Maybe the winds of regret or the circumstances within relationships removed him from the scene. For him, we must find a place in our hearts to forgive. But most of the dads were there. They just don’t show up much when you look back through the albums. You can’t see them, but you can feel them. That’s because they were not only there, but they’re still there, in your heart. Maybe the next time you look at one of your family albums crowded with pictures taken by your father, you might want to see it from his perspective. He was looking through the lens when that particular moment was captured. You were his pride and his hope. You were then. You still are now. To all of those fathers who weren’t in the picture but did so much to make it happen I say, Happy Father’s Day.

©Copyright 2010 Family Matters and Dr. Tim Kimmel