“You never truly appreciate someone until you do not have them anymore. I have taught and understood this statement for years, mostly referring to when I jammed my fingers and tried to write or when I was sick. This statement, however, takes on a new meaning to me now.

My dad died in February, at the age of 53, from esophageal cancer. That same day he died, my wife and I found out that he was going to be a grandfather to a baby girl. When we’d told my parents that we were expecting, he did not react very much. I had dreamed of having a child and informing my parents, but that was not the way I expected things to go. Things did not go as planned.

I don’t mean to bum you out. I simply want to implore you to appreciate your father while you have him.

I never faced a day where my dad left my family. He was there for all the major events. My childhood was a blessed one, with a loving mother and father. My greatest regret, though, is not knowing my dad very well.

As he approached his death day, I made several visits to him (my parents live in Tennessee and I in Minnesota), and in the time leading up to those days with him, I constantly thought of questions I wanted to ask, most of them about his early days as a husband and father. When the time came, however, I did not. We reverted back to the normal routine for our family time: watching TV. I never got my chance to understand more about my dad.

The last visit I made, just a few days before he died, he slept most of the time. When I left for the airport early in the morning, he was sleeping, and I had the thought of calmly waking him up to say goodbye. My thought instead was, ‘I’ll just text him. I’ll see him again in March.’ I saved the response he sent later that morning and will forever keep that as our last conversation. He died two days later. I don’t remember what the last thing I said to him was.

Appreciate the time with your father. At the time of this writing, Christmas is a few days away. Don’t allow some silly or petty disagreement get in the way of you spending time with him. Make amends.

While I never had that type of rift with my dad, this will be the first Christmas without him, and I will never have that conversation with him. It is hard right now, but God gives the grace we need.”

– Stephen Fletcher

Want to share a story about fatherhood? Email [email protected]

Check out the previous editions of Father Figures here.

You have to be an incredibly lucky fan to even attend an NFL game these days, but one young Colts fan got even more than he bargained for. As Colts linebacker Darius Leonard was running off the field, he took off his game-worn gloves and tossed them to the fan. The only problem, the fan later discovered Leonard’s wedding ring was in the gloves too.

The return of the NFL has been a resounding success so far, although many of the games have been played to empty stadiums and the only fans have been virtual. A handful of stadiums, though, have had a small number of fans (typically a couple thousand). And as Leonard was running back to the locker room, he realized he may have given the fan more than he wanted to.

Fortunately, the kid had no interest in keeping the ring. After a post on social media went viral, Leonard responded with some laugh emojis and said “I need that.”

Colts LB Darius Leonard threw this fan his gloves on Sunday, but his wedding ring was in them 😅

They got in touch over Twitter and the ring is heading back to Leonard

(via B/R’s @TylerDBrooke) pic.twitter.com/pJ6maJjHyL

— B/R Gridiron (@brgridiron) September 21, 2020

I need that 😂😂😂😂

— Darius Leonard (@dsleon45) September 21, 2020

“Once I put my gloves on, my ring is on,” Leonard said on SportsCenter. “Once I knew I took the gloves off and that’s the only thing that could have possibly happened, that’s when in my mind when I threw my glove, the ring went with it. Thought I might not see that ring again.”

The fan reached out to Leonard’s wife on social media to get the process started of returning the ring. Leonard was incredibly thankful to get it back, as any married guy knows the river of crap he’d face if he lost his wedding ring and couldn’t come up with it.

Leonard told ESPN it shows the kid was raised well.

“I always say that it’s a showcase of his parents. The honesty of saying they found it. Some people wouldn’t have said anything. They would have said it’s a souvenir. I thank them for blessing me to give my ring back, thanking them for being honest. It couldn’t have happened to a better family.”

The Colts linebacker said he’d be sending a jersey or another souvenir to the kid as a way of saying thanks for helping his ring get back to his hand. He also said he’ll continue to wear it when he plays, although I’m sure he’ll check twice the next time he tries to give away his gloves.

Transitioning from in-person learning to virtual learning is no easy feat. Aside from the distractions and the disappointment of not seeing their friends every day, many kids are left without the setup they need to learn from home successfully. Mitch Couch, a father of four, saw firsthand just how much of a struggle it was to find his kids a designated space to learn from home. Being the handy dad he is, Couch decided to build his kids their very own desks to use as their own mini work stations. It wasn’t long before Couch realized other parents were likely having the same issue, so he set out to help.

He explained on Instagram, “I know many of our little ones are still home doing distant learning. Our two kids were taking up space at the kitchen table making it a hassle when it came time for meals. So I made them their own little desks. The cool thing is they can store their items in it after they are done and it can be folded away later to take up less space.”

 

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Good morning family and friends. I know many of our little ones are still home doing distant learning. Our two kids were taking up space at the kitchen table making it a hassle when it came time for meals. So I made them their own little desks. The cool thing is they can store their items in it after they are done and it can be folded away later to take up less space. If you want to try your hand at making your own, check out my etsy page, they are immediate downloads for 99 cents: https://www.etsy.com/listing/849973882/diy-folding-desk-printable-pdf-plans I made this one for around $35. Have a great day. #school #distantlearning #desk #diy #woodworking

A post shared by Mitch Couch (@goodlyearth) on Sep 3, 2020 at 8:29am PDT

Couch made his fairly simple design available on his Etsy page for just $0.99, hoping that it would allow other parents to create a learning area for their own kids. After hearing about this crafty dad’s creations, a store in the area approached Couch with a request.

“A local grocery store, Grocery Outlet, reached out to me to see if I could build a few for kids in need,” Couch told The Dad. “They were so kind to buy all of the materials and I built them. It started at 25 desks but we ended up doing 35 because the need was so great.”

You read that right – immediately after learning that local kids were struggling with finding the space to work productively at home, Couch got to work, cranking out 35 desks in under a month. Couch spent 12 years as a house contractor and began woodworking three years ago. Though he is highly skilled with tools and the building process, this was a huge undertaking. He didn’t do it alone though, Project Desk turned into a family affair.

“My family was soooo helpful” Couch explained. “They actually came out and helped me build. They did most of the sanding and helping me load and unload the desks.”

His wife even surprised him with four desks she built while he was at work! Now that’s love. The project helped teach his kids the importance of giving back to their community, and the response this big-hearted family received for their efforts was nothing short of extraordinary.

 

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I have to tell you about some amazing people in our community. The owners of the local Grocery Outlet saw my diy desk video and asked me if i could make some desks for them. They wanted to donate them to the local schools for the kids who are in need because of distant learning. I didn’t hesitate to help them out. They asked for 25 desks to start but the need was great so we upped it to 35!!! My wonderful wife helped me through the whole thing and even surprised me with four desks she made while I was at work. The owners wanted to keep it low key but I just have to let others know how much local business means to a community like ours. Thank you Karin and David for being wonderful people. #supportsmallbusiness #groceryoutlet

A post shared by Mitch Couch (@goodlyearth) on Sep 17, 2020 at 7:41am PDT

“After I posted the desks online I woke up the next morning with hundreds of messages from people all over the world,” Couch recalled.

The desks were distributed through the people at Grocery Outlet who took the time to contact schools, finding kids who needed them. Even the anonymity of the donation didn’t stop grateful recipients from expressing their appreciation.

“Today I got a message from someone who got a few of the desks after they recognized them from online,” Couch said. “They were so grateful.”

While dealing with the struggles of helping his own kids adjust to virtual learning, Couch took the time to open his heart and his toolbox to help others who were struggling as well. He set out to make a difference, and man – he absolutely nailed it.

Having a kid fall seriously ill is one of the most brutal experiences a parent can experience. You want to do anything you can to help your child get through the experience. Even if that means putting on full-fledged dance performances in a hospital parking lot.

Hospitals can be a scary place for kids, and that’s why any effort to make it suck less needs to be lifted up and applauded. Like the hospital that lets kids drive mini cars to their surgery or the dad who kept dancing until his son was out of the NICU.

A dad in Texas took a different approach, with the same attitude behind it, to brighten his son’s hospital visits. Chuck Yielding’s 14-year-old son Aiden has been receiving chemotherapy treatments for leukemia for much of the year. When Chuck and his wife found out only one of them could accompany Aiden for his treatments (thanks to COVID), it made sense for his mom to be there (she’s a healthcare worker).

But that didn’t mean his dad wasn’t going to show up. He’s been there for his son in a different way…dancing in the parking lot. While his son gets his weekly chemo treatments, he can take a break to look out his window to see his dad dancing in the parking lot below.

His dad doesn’t hold back, pulling out all the stops to put a smile on his son’s face.

I mean come on, it’s tough to watch that and not have a smile on your face. That is peak dad we all aspire to.

Aiden told a local news station he thinks its funny and it cheers him up. Chuck said he’s doing anything he can to brighten his day.

“Just anything to brighten his spirits up a little bit and let him know he is not alone. We are with him,” he said.

This might be one of the few times in dad history that a kid is actually happy to see his dad break out the embarrassing dance moves, a skill every dad is born with. And props to Chuck for bringing those skillz on the road, turning a parking lot into a weekly dance party.

Sometimes words elude you. A person can mean the entire world to you, but that may not always be an easy thing to communicate. For some people, decades can go by with the same partner and it never gets easier or less uncomfortable. If “words of affirmations” aren’t your “love language,” it could always be a struggle. This is especially true when you’re trying to share those feelings with the person you care about while they stand in front of you. It gets even worse when you’re confronted with a word limit, like when you engrave a watch, locket, or anything else customizable. How do you tell your moon and stars that they’re your everything in 10 words or less? Dude. It’s practically impossible.

Except it’s not. It might have felt like it 30-ish years ago when “the Google machine” didn’t exist and you were forced to be original. Now, though, it’s easier than ever to look up “what to engrave on a watch” and find plenty of ideas if you’re gearing up to give someone a special gift. You know this, though. That’s why you’re here.

With that in mind, we’ve gone ahead and rounded up the best — short — engraving ideas for watches and other special customizable gifts.

Quotes From Pop Culture

You are my person. – Grey’s Anatomy
I’d miss you even if we never met. – The Wedding Date
I love you. I know. – Star Wars
Always. – Harry Potter
You will never age for me, nor fade, nor die. – Shakespeare In Love
As you wish. – The Princess Bride
I love you and I like you. – Parks And Rec
You have bewitched me. – Pride And Prejudice
I’m yours. – Jason Mraz
You complete me – Jerry Maguire
You’re my best friend – Tim McGraw
You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how. – Gone With The Wind
Wait for it. – Hamilton
Swoon. I’ll Catch You. – The English Patient
Just As You Are. – Bridget Jones’ Diary
All of me loves all of you – John Legend
I could hold you for a million years – Bob Dylan
Ohana means family – Lilo And Stitch

Quotes For Anniversaries

Now and forever.
The best is yet to come.
“If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.” – Haruki Murakami
I got you, babe.
I choose you.
Thank you for loving me.
My North Star.
Life is better with you.
“Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.” – H. L. Mencken

Quotes Referencing Time

Some of these are longer and may require bigger pieces or tinier font. But, for those of you stuck on finding an engraving that actually references time (we get it!), this might be the way to go if you can swing it.

Tempus Fugit (Time Flies)
Forever and always.
Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.
“Time is the wisest counselor of all.” – Pericles
“I’ve had the time of my life.” – Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes (Yes, the Dirty Dancing song.)
“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” Tolstoy
“Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties.” – Jules Renard
“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.” – Ursula K. Le Guin
“Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.” – William Shakespeare
“I would rather spend one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone.” – Tolkien
“Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be!” – Browning

Even during a pandemic, Marvel keeps making news.

We just found out that the Black Widow movie and Eternals were delayed from theaters again, thanks to the pandemic. We also got a (weird, awesome) trailer for WandaVision and learned that it will be the first MCU show to hit Disney+, arriving sometime before the end of the year, landing before the Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki. And they announced that Tatyana Maslany (Orphan Black) will be starring in the She-Hulk series, about which we know little else.

But perhaps the biggest news of all is the latest: Disney+ is bringing a Nick Fury show to the airwaves, and Samuel L. Jackson is coming with it.

The news of the Fury series comes out of Variety and so far we don’t know a thing about it. The last we saw of the eyepatched leader of (the now-defunct) SHIELD, he was lounging on a spaceship somewhere out there in Spider-Man Far From Home’s post-credits scene.

Will this show tackle his outer space adventures? Will they de-age him, Captain Marvel style, and watch as he builds SHIELD and assembles the Avengers? Will any of those Avengers make an appearance on the show?

We have no idea. Not that we need to. Samuel L. Jackson is probably the biggest star yet to hop from the MCU’s theater screens onto Disney+’s streaming platforms, and further solidifies the promise that these series will play into the MCU’s movies, once those finally get back in action.

Having shown up in 11 of the 23 MCU movies, Fury is a big part of the universe, and a major piece of connective tissue. It’s hard to imagine that whatever he’s up to on his show won’t somehow play into the movies, considering how integral he’s been to the forming of the team, and the importance of his relationship to Captain Marvel, who’s sure to play a big role in the next phase of the MCU.

We’ll see what happens, but it’s exciting that a movie star of Jackson’s stature is carrying his role over to Disney+.

I hope they allow swears.

So uh, how’s virtual learning going? You know what, don’t answer that. Father of three and big-hearted goofball Ryan Reynolds feels your pain, and he’s here to help. Aside from his passions for acting and philanthropizing (just go with it), Reynolds takes his gin very seriously.

After acquiring a stake in Aviation Gin in 2018, Reynolds has become the face and the smartass behind the popular gin company. Reynolds is one of the rare celebrities who uses both his money and influence for good, and unsurprisingly, he’s doing the same with Aviation Gin. He donated 30% of his gin proceeds for over a month to bartenders suffering income loss due to COVID, and now, he’s got a little something for the parents.

Reynolds announced that Aviation Gin would be releasing a new product to give parents a little – uh – boost, while helping guide their kids through virtual learning.

“Aviation Home School edition. Official sponsor of Parent-Gin conferences,” Reynolds’s posted on Twitter, along with the special-edition gin’s commercial.

Aviation Home School edition. Official sponsor of Parent-Gin conferences. https://t.co/22d4p0Dbe6 pic.twitter.com/mClZQawMsb

— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) September 24, 2020

The commercial opens with Reynolds seated at a desk, staring at the camera with the powerful intensity of a dad who was just asked “what’s for dinner?” right after he threw a steak on the grill.

“It’s back to school time, which this year, has a whole new meaning,” Reynolds begins. “That’s why today, I’m introducing Aviation American Gin-” he says, slamming a huge freaking bottle down on his mahogany desk, “-Home School edition. It’s just like the classic delicious Aviation Gin that you love, but with more ounces.” Nearly 60 ounces, which should last, you know – a little while.

“It can help with a variety of subjects,” Reynolds continues, “Fourth-grade geography, whatever the f*** new math is. And revisiting your own long-forgotten middle school traumas.”

The commercial concludes with the hauntingly-familiar sound of a school bell, as Reynolds voices what we’re all thinking – “Middle school is the f****** worst.”

Sitting down with your kids to help them through virtual learning can leave you feeling like Billy Madison but without the cool hat. School was tough enough the first time through, but at least this time we can legally drink. Just, you know, save it for after class.

It’s only been a few weeks since Chadwick Boseman tragically, and unexpectedly, for the general public, succumbed to colon cancer and passed away after a four-year fight with the disease.

In the days and weeks since his passing, the tributes have hardly stopped. His friends and coworkers eulogized him with touching remembrances of his kindness, dignity, and work ethic, while fans praised him for being a role model to their children, especially to the young black children who’d finally had a superhero of their own to look up to.

Now, many of these children will have a chance to pay tribute again, should they visit Disneyland in the coming years.

The park just unveiled a stunning mural of the star in the Downtown Disney shopping district portion of the park. The mural depicts Boseman kneeling and making the Wakanda salute to a young child in a hospital gown and Black Panther mask.

 

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He would never let the kids see that he was fighting cancer too… To them, he was and will forever be T’Challa… The King✨ A portion of the proceeds of this print will go to @childrensla and @stjude (www.Nikkolas.Art) . #LongLiveTheKing PS: Black Panther global stream starts Tonight at 8pm EST. 🙏🏾👊🏾🐾✨ #BlackPanther #RIPChadwick #ChadwickBoseman #CHLA #StJude #WakandaForever

A post shared by Nikkolas Smith (@nikkolas_smith) on Aug 29, 2020 at 4:59pm PDT

“This one is special. My King Chad tribute is now on a wall on display at Downtown Disney,” the mural’s designer, Nikkolas Smith wrote in the caption to his Instagram post of the mural. “It is a full circle moment for me: my final two projects as a Disney Imagineer last summer were working on the children’s hospital project and the Avengers Campus.”

The mural is titled “King Chad” and pays tribute to the star’s work with children, specifically his visits to young cancer patients on St. Jude’s campus, even while secretly suffering from the disease himself.

“To millions of kids, T’Challa was a legend larger than life, and there was no one more worthy to fill those shoes than Chadwick Boseman,” Smith continued. “I’m so thankful to be able to honor Chadwick’s life and purpose in this way. I am grateful to the Disney family for being so supportive of my journey as an artist.”

Boseman has left a huge legacy in his short career, and his memory will live on via the films he appeared in and the many people he inspired and touched along the way. Now, at Disneyland, thousands will get reminded of that every day when they walk past Smith’s stunning mural that captures the kindness of the star that extended past his performance and into his daily life.

Sometimes it seems like every TV show from the 80s and 90s is getting rebooted or remade or turned into a movie.

The Fresh Prince is coming back as a drama, Who’s the Boss is coming back with much of the original cast, Roseanne came back, even Twin Peaks had a sequel. At one point Mark Wahlberg was supposed to star in a movie version of The Six Million Dollar Man.

That project is stalled somewhere in Hollywood development hell, but a new movie based on a Lee Majors show just got announced, and with Ryan Gosling and the director of the John Wick movies involved, it’s sure to get made.

The movie is about a stuntman, and it’s at least going to be loosely based off of the 80s show The Fall Guy, that starred Majors and the other big Heather from the 80s, Heather Thomas.

The show, which was created by Glen Larson, the producer behind the 80s shows Battlestar Galactica and Magnum P.I. (both of which were remade this century), was about a Hollywood stuntman who moonlighted as a bounty hunter to make ends meet. Hollywood has tried to make this movie a few times, most recently with Dwayne Johnson, but it seems like this it’s finally going to happen.

With David Leitch, the former stuntman and coordinator who co-directed the John Wick movies and handled Atomic Blonde by himself, behind the camera, Gosling may be our next unlikely action star especially when you pair this with the spy thriller he’s doing for Netflix.

No word yet on when this will be out – the deal was only just struck, so it will be a while – but it seems to me that turning a fun but largely forgotten TV show with a cool premise into a movie is a decent bet. Especially with this team.

A dad, his son, and one final football game. That was the dying wish for a Kentucky dad who was diagnosed with an extremely rare and aggressive cancer in August. He wanted to see his son play one more time. His nurse at the hospice facility knew his son’s high school football game was too far away to drive, so she found a local pilot who could fly all of them to see his son on the gridiron.

50-year-old Scott Sullivan was diagnosed with a rare cancer that spreads to the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord and was given a life expectancy of two to four months, according to CNN. He was discharged to the Hospice of Lake Cumberland, where Sullivan told his nurse his dying wish; to see his son Cade play football at least one more time.

His nurse, Jerree Humphrey, said she knew the drive would be too much for him to handle (it would’ve been about 8 hours in the car). So she looked to the sky and found a local pilot who volunteered to fly all of them to the game on September 11th. The group flew 200 miles on game day to see Cade, a sophomore, playing his first game of the high school football season.

For Scott, it was possibly the last time he’d see his son play. They sat on a hill overlooking the stadium to be socially distanced, but as soon as his son spotted them he ran over and gave his dad a hug.

“You could just not help but cry,” Humphrey told CNN. “He just embraced him so hard and was just so thankful for him to be there.”

“Words could not be put into sentences or phrases to describe how I felt at that time,” said an overwhelmed Scott. “I was just so happy to see my son.”

A tragedy like that is incomprehensible. One day you’re fine, the next your world is turned completely upside down. But for one last game, a dad got to see his son play football, and everything was good again, if only for a few hours.