A dead dad is sad. But at least you know. Not having one and never having known him can be really hard. Or, not hard at all. It depends.
I recall when at primary school my teacher set the class to draw Father’s Day cards, and how she knew her children well enough to put two of us aside, doing other things. Because we didn’t have fathers.
In Dimity Powell’s and Nicky Johnston’s picture book This Is My Dad, Leo’s teacher seems oblivious when she introduces a Tell Us About Your Dad Day. Leo doesn’t know what to do. And at home, his mum is rather busy, so he can’t ask her about it.
But he comes up with a solution. For his presentation at school, Leo tells the class about his mum. Because to him, she is his dad.
It’s so simple. But it’s also really difficult, until you work out who does what and why. In my case I worked something else out, and once I’d done it, all the pieces fell into place. The important thing is to have someone. It doesn’t matter who they are, as long as they are somebody to you.
The Occasional Bookwitch 
I ran into this at work on either Father’s Day or Mother’s Day. One of my coworkers had lost a parent early and it hadn’t occurred to me that this holiday might be a hard day for her. I don’t think I even knew that the parent had died, but it was kind of a lesson about not assuming things around big days. A lot of people may have a hard time around Valentine’s Day tomorrow, for instance, for various reasons.
These days I find I’m surprised when people my own age turn out to have parents, still alive. But, as you say, one shouldn’t take for granted that all of us are the same as everyone else.
Ah, beautifully put, Ann. And what a special and necessary book this sounds. I would have gladly shared my dad with you if we had been friends in those past days.
Thank you!
A small girl in our church talked happily about her Dad on. Mother’s Day. (Her mother day died a year or so after the girl was born. The Mum had resisted having chemo when pregnant – a brave young woman.)