Celebrating My First Father's Day Without My Father

I remember coming from elementary school crying my eyes out one day. I was a stutterer growing up and the object of many of my classmates' entertainment during the day when I tried speaking. This day for some reason was particularly hard. My father, the man who chose me to carry his name, looked at me and said, "The next time they laugh at you, you just tell them you have a daddy and mama at home who loves you."

I looked at him for a moment and thought to myself, "I can't tell them that! They'd just want to beat me up more."

While I didn't think my father's words were all that wise in the evil, cutthroat world of the third-grade playground, they were true and helped me save my self-esteem through those years. Joseph Clyde "J.C." Hughes, Sr. was a man's man and whenever he spoke, he had a full, undivided attention. He was a strict disciplinary who demanded that his four boys don't go astray. But for every whipping we received, we got three times as many hugs and encouragement that always ended with him telling us how much he loved us.

My father worked a lot of hours at low-paying, service jobs - cook, bartender, maintenance man, farm hand - and we were usually one of the poorest families on the block, regardless of where that block was located in Beaumont, Texas. The trick was my dad never made us feel like we were poor. Every Christmas was treated like the best Christmas ever. He taught us to hold our heads high and never to be embarrassed to go anywhere. In short, in the most difficult of times for blacks in the South in the 1960s and 70s, he taught us how to be proud, responsible men.

I wouldn't be the man I am if it wasn't for him standing tall every day. It would be years before I fully understood how much he sacrificed for us and the morals behind all the stories he told. I remember inviting him to sit with me during an awards ceremony at Lamar University after I graduated with my bachelor's degree. I remember him saying how proud he was of me while meeting some of my professors and other students. Two years ago, when I began to sponsor a scholarship in Lamar's communication department in his and my mother's name, I hoped he would be just a proud. By that time, he was in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimer's disease. The disease had ruthlessly stolen most of his ability to express himself, but he still managed a big smile and a hug, his trademark since birth, whenever I saw him.

I made a promise to my dad at his funeral in March that he would never be forgotten. The truth is that memories of him have always made me a better person. In short, he is the one doing me the favor with thoughts of him.

As a journalist, I've done many crime stories about broken people and their broken lives. Nearly all of them had one or two common themes - the perpetrators either had no father or parent in their lives or if they did, he was so self absorbed with his own plight he never opened his eyes to what was his most important job, his family. Great fathers are fathers who give of themselves for his children and family. It has little to do with money and fame. I think we can all count the destructive lives of children who grew up with such money and fame. It's more evidence of how love and attention will always mean more than those things in raising a family. My parents knew this. My parents gave this.

Those crime stories reminded me time and time again just how lucky I was to have a father like my dad and what a difference he made in my life. He was there when I needed him the most and in that time he gave us everything he had.

I will not mourn my dad's death this Father's Day, but celebrate him for the person he was and remember how fortunate I was to be called one of his sons.