Honoring Dad On Father's Day

You don’t need to stay for a long time if you start to feel upset. Take it minute by minute and just see what feels okay to you. If it helps, maybe try to tell dad the way that you’re feeling or something good that happened recently that you’d like him to know.

It might be a good idea to have a picnic with a family member and talk about your dad with them. This way, you spend quality time at the cemetery but also have a bit of a distraction when you need it.

As a tribute to a father who has passed away, you might leave a bit of food or drink at the grave for him.

Even if you are not particularly religious, attending a service that your father used to attend can be a great way to remember him this Father’s Day. The leader of the service will likely be happy to see you paying tribute to your father on the special day.

You might even meet a few people who are in the same boat as you; whether they are attending services without their father for the first time or they have been for several years, others that have had similar life experiences can be good shoulders to lean on during this emotional time.

You can write about anything and everything – whatever feels right to you. Explain to him how you’re feeling on Father’s Day now that he isn’t there, tell him some exciting new family or personal news, recount a memory between the two you of you that makes you happy.

Once you’re done, you can either keep the letter, give it to another family member, or burn it as a way of letting go.

If you have children, this can be a great opportunity to look back on the man that they knew as their father or grandfather and maybe see him at certain ages that they never had before.

Old photos are also great opportunities for a few laughs, something that is absolutely necessary on a day when you’re missing the special man in your life. Checking out dad’s old outfits, hairstyles and things he liked to do can be a fun time for the whole family.

If dad has some old letters that he wrote, music that he recorded, or video footage that he captured, Father’s Day would be a great opportunity to dig those out of the memory boxes and relive the moments together.

Use the party as a chance to remember all of the fun times that you’ve all had with dad, share with him the things that you wish he knew, watch his favorite movie or play a memorial video that you and your family created, and make some of his personal favorite recipes.

When you have a shared experience like this with a dozen or so other people, you realize that you’re not all alone in the world, even though it might feel like it from time to time. Your dad had such an impact on the people around him and sharing his memory with other people that miss him will help you to realize the incredible impact that he left on the world and the people in it.

Taking out your dad’s custom ride will breathe life into this creation that he devoted so much of his time and energy to. Maybe you can even finish a few of the projects he started or find your own custom ride to start building one day.

Even cars, trucks, and motorcycles can be family heirlooms if they’re taken care of properly and a regular tune-up of your dad’s ride is a tribute to him that he would be most proud of!

You don’t need to drive anywhere in particular although you might want to take a trip to one of his favorite places or to the cemetery where he now rests. Still, just a cruise with the windows down, and maybe his favorite song blasting through the speakers will be an experience that is sure to leave a smile on your face.

Another Father’s Day gift that you can give to your father even after he passed away is a memorial tree, plaque, or piece of décor. There are many organizations that auction off spaces in the community and use the money towards a good cause. Typically, these spaces remain as pillars in the community for years to come.

You might be able to purchase a park bench, a brick in a new building or monument, a sapling, the list goes on. If your family has the funds for it, you could make a large contribution to a school, hospital, library, or not-for-profit organization and have a section of the building or a scholarship created in his name.

An urn necklace for ashes allows you to hold your father with you wherever you go. It’s an incredibly personal gift and tribute to a father that has passed away, but sometimes that’s exactly what you need.

This is the best Father’s Day gift for someone who is particularly sentimental or needs to feel that physical closeness with their father that they have been lacking since he passed away. This way, he is always with the person who wears the pendant throughout their many journeys in life.

On the back of the Father’s Day ash jewelry, you can inscribe up to five lines of text. It could be a message from your father to you, a prayer or quote that has sentimental meaning, or just his name and birth/death date.

When the time comes, you can pass the ash jewelry down to your child, sibling, or another person who loved your father as dearly as you did.

If you’re able to spend some time with your grandparents in your dad’s hometown, maybe they can show you around town and tell you stories about your dad. You might hear some stories that you’ve never heard before! This is a great opportunity to bring yourself closer to your father, emotionally, and a fun family bonding experience, too.

While you’re driving around, see if you can get in touch with any of your father’s childhood friends. They might have some stories that not even grandma and grandpa know.

If your dad had out-of-town friends that couldn’t make it to the funeral, this might also be the perfect opportunity for them to reminisce on the days of their youth and get some closure.

Choose a place your home or somewhere that means a lot to you, your father, or your family as a whole. If you’d like to, hold hands with the people you are with to strengthen the connection that you have with each other. During times like these, it’s of utmost importance to keep the people that we love really close to us so we can lean on them for support.

Take a few moments to remember your father. Breathe deeply and picture him standing beside you or relive a memory in your head. Think about all of the reasons why you loved your dad and honor him for the good man that he was.

In this moment, send a subliminal message to your dad and picture him receiving it. Open your heart to all of the lessons he taught you throughout the years and promise to take the best ones with you through life.

Making the scrapbook can be a solo activity that you do to honor dad on first Father’s Day since passed away, but it can also be a great way to get the whole family or just the kids involved. You can pass around the scrapbook from person to person and each one adds a new page or two of memories into the scrapbook.

There’s no saying that you have to finish it in one sitting! Perhaps you’d like to make it a tradition where every year on Father’s Day, you sit down and add a page or two to the book. Once it’s full, you can pass it down to a younger family member and, before you know it, you have a new family heirloom.

For further customization, you can have a few lines of writing engraved onto the back of the keychain. This might be a personal note, a cherished prayer or quote, or the name and relevant dates of the father who is being memorialized.

With a Father’s Day photo engraved keychain, you will be able to carry around the best photo of your father (or the two of you together) wherever you go, with the confidence that the image is going to last. Eventually, you may even choose to pass down the keychain as a family heirloom to really keep the memory of your father alive.

It will be comforting to know that even after all the years and distance, that one image of your father will always exist.

Everything that meant a lot to you (and your father) will come together in a beautiful quilt that you can snuggle up with every time you watch a movie on a rainy day or put the kids down for a nap.

This is a great alternative to getting rid of your father’s old clothes that aren’t going to be worn anymore. With a quilt, you don’t have to worry about dad’s favorite t-shirts winding up in a donation center, keeping them stuffed in a closet, or tossing them out.

Some dads have collected a lot of t-shirts over the years. If your dad seems to have collected a t-shirt from every place he had ever went, you might have hundreds of shirts on your hands! In this case, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a bunch of quilts made. You can pass them out to all of your siblings, your dad’s siblings, and have a few left over for when family comes to visit.

If he has a large collection, jerseys or uniforms, and newspaper and magazine clippings, you can get a nice, big, glass display case and a few shadow boxes and frames and create a whole corner dedicated to your father.

Each award is really another reason for you to be proud of your father and way for you to honor his memory. It could be a great Father’s Day activity as a family to design the whole display and set it up together or a really personal moment for you to do alone.

If you need help framing things like jerseys or newspaper clippings, you can take your items to a professional. It might be a good idea to have paper clippings mounted so that they don’t become brittle or worn down over time.

If your dad had a great sense of humor, this can be especially fun. Sometimes, as the stories go on and change over time, the bad or dull parts are replaced with funnier stories. This in itself can be a tribute to your dad on Father’s Day.

If you have a particular story that is very important to you or your dad, write it down or type it out so that the memory can be preserved exactly as you remember it.

If you go this route, you can make copies of the story and pass it around the day before Father’s Day so everyone can participate in the same memory together.

They say that in helping others, you can help yourself (5) and even though it might be hard to bring yourself to reach out to others on a day when you are in mourning, you might be surprised at how much better you feel at the end of the day.

Putting a smile on someone else’s face is a surefire way to bring a smile to your own.

If you set up something for his awards, have a quilt made or create a scrapbook, you could spray the memorabilia with his scent, and every time you go back to it, give it another spray if you notice the scent waning.

Scent can invoke really powerful emotions. In fact, our olfactory receptors are connected to the limbic system and the most primitive part of the brain. They are considered to be the “seat” of emotion and directly connected to the part of the brain that creates an emotional response (6).

For mom, ask her about the first day she met your dad or what is was like when they first started seeing each other. Have her recount how they first sparked their love so that you can understand what kind of man your father was when he was young. and she can relive those first moments of their relationship.

Jewelry Keepsakes’ fingerprint jewelry takes an exact replica of your loved one’s fingerprint and engraves it onto a piece of metal in the form of a necklace or keychain.

With this, your mom and grandma can forever carry around an extremely personal piece of your father for the rest of their lives. Eventually, this gift can be passed down to you, your siblings, or your children.

Keep your family close and try to plan a day that’s really honors your father while still allowing you to have some fun as a family!