Our Papa, our fathers, our Metua, Pops, or simply Dad – as we celebrate Father’s Day, the word “father” evokes a mixture of feelings and memories about the roles they have played in our families and lives, whether present, absent, or just passing through, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.

From a Kai manga to a katikati, for some, their fathers have been a feast that has filled their hearts for the many seasons of their lives, and for others, a katikati –little pieces over time that were just enough to keep them going, but always left them feeling a little hungry for more.

For some, dads were like the maru – shade and shelter – protecting them from the storms and providing relief when it just got too hot. For others, they were a shadow, the ata tangata, a figure cast against the wall of their lives – what seemed like the outline of a person, but was really just a shadow they cast against the wall of a young child’s life, a child always wondering who it was that cast that shadow and why they didn’t remain.

Nothing in life’s many seasons has brought me as much joy and hardship, self-reflection, and pain as being a father, and being a son. The joy of seeing our children succeed, despite the many obstacles they never chose to have in their way; the hardship these challenges brought them; the self-reflection a parent endures as they see their choices unravel in their children, now adults; and the enduring desire to do better and be better – a dad, a father, a parent, and a human being, for them and for ourselves.

The perfection we demanded of our parents as young adults soon subsides for forgiveness when we face our own challenges as parents and fathers. This lesson is one we all must face if we are to grow in the later seasons of our lives and live to be the fathers and parents we hoped for when we were younger and have the opportunity to be now. We cannot be the parents, fathers, and men we want for them while carrying the pain of our own journey, as hurt people end up hurting people – but healed people heal also.

We often think about one generation giving to the next as a parcel that passes from one to the other, not realising that this gift-giving is a back-and-forth, a side-to-side, and sometimes from the younger to the older as well. The generation that comes after us can heal our lives too, as they acquire new tools to parent, to discipline, and to deal with stress and pressure – tools that no longer come with the social permissions to behave as we once did. If our hearts are open to it, our sons and daughters have gifts for us too, not only in the grandchildren, ina and inaina, they give us but also in the journey they take, the tools they have available, and their deep love for us to be better fathers, better dads, and better parents for their children too.

I know a spiritual Father who loves us all without condition, who actually says, “Come as you are,” and it is this deep and unconditional love that has transformed my own life and the lives of so many others since. The burden of the cross was not just the weight of the world’s shortcomings on Jesus, it was that moment when He felt separated from His Father and cried, “Father, why have you forsaken me?” In that moment, He connected with the deepest cry of our own broken humanity – for a father to love us without condition or favour.

Happy Father’s Day to all our dads, all our fathers, all our mothers who have been dads, grandparents that have been dads, aunts and uncles that have been dads too. A father means so many things to so many of us, and today we celebrate who that is in your life for you. I remain forever grateful to my Dad, and to my Father, for the gift of life and life’s lessons that have shaped me to be a better man and Dad, and to my many other dads and father figures who have been that for me also.