By Shanna Provost 1 September 2025

If you’re feeling loss on Father’s Day this year, you’re not alone. Many of us will sit around the kitchen table with Dad taking pride of place this Sunday as Australians celebrate Father’s Day, and there are plenty of Hallmark cards to help us celebrate our living dads, but in this article let’s acknowledge those who won’t get to buy that card this year.

I’m so lucky. As well as being spoilt on Mother’s Day, I get a Happy Father’s Day Mum text from my adult son every year. It’s his way of reminding me that he knows that as a single mum, I did all the heavy lifting in getting him to adulthood. I also text his father on that day wherever he is in the world to thank him for cocreating this beautiful child.

Our family isn’t unique. Many other families won’t fit into the ‘Hallmark’ version of Father’s Day either, so let’s explore the guidance from others around the world on how to navigate the various emotions that arise on this day.

Supporting children who are feeling the loss of a father

Winston’s Wish is the United Kingdom’s first childhood bereavement charity that provides free digital bereavement information and support for young people who are grieving the death of someone important to them. In this article titled, Supporting a child on Mother's Day and Father's Day they offer the following tips.

1. Make a special card in memory of your mum or dad

2. Take the special card to their grave or to where their ashes are

3. Blow some bubbles and imagine these can carry a message to them

4. Plant some bulbs or a shrub in a place that holds special memories of your mum or dad

5. Cook their favourite meal – pizza? Roast dinner? Curry?

6. Listen to their favourite music (however awful their taste was!)

7. Put something in a memory box that reminds you of them

8. Create a digital memory board of special photos

9. Ask family members for their memories of your mum or dad

10. Write them a letter or a poem or a song

Another of their articles titled, How young people cope with Father’s Day after their dad has died, offers insights from six young people on how to get through the day.

But it’s not only young people who can feel loss on Father’s Day. No matter how old we are, and even if our Dad lived to a ripe old age, the feeling of loss can still be there, and these tips can help them too. And then are others who will be feeling loss on Father’s Day because their partner or father has dementia and can’t communicate how he once did.

In her article ‘Father’s Day After Loss: Grieving and Remembering Dad’ for Psychology Today, Jessica Trollo Ph.D. offers these tips:

• Acknowledge Father’s Day instead of avoiding it—grief often surfaces anyway.

• Reframe the day as Remembrance Day to honour your father in a personal way.

• Create rituals—write, volunteer, or revisit memories that bring comfort.

• Make plans ahead and lean on support; connection eases the weight of grief.

Grieving an estranged father

Life isn’t always tied up in a neat little box. There are many of us who experience the pain of not having Dad around for a myriad of reasons even though he is still alive. Steven J. Lyons wrote a beautiful tome to his absent father for Motherwell Magazine titled, To My Absent Father on Father’s Day, with Love. It’s a tender letter that highlights the pain a child feels when their father leaves the family and how they survive the loss over time. He writes…

‘If I could ever find that elusive, perfect Father’s Day card it would say:

Thank you for not being there. I am stronger because of your absence. Without a road map I blazed my own trail; my mistakes are my own. My modest successes were accomplished with my own small skill set. When I got knocked down I rose on my own without your hand to lift me up.’

In her article How I found peace while grieving my estranged parent, Ana Flores writes…

“Grieving an estranged parent when they’re alive is hard. Grieving them a second time when they eventually pass is even more complicated as the hope of reconciliation dies with them.”

And Erica [no surname] at The Incidental Parent writes…

“The death of an estranged parent is still the loss of a parent though and your grief is still real. Despite not actually knowing the person that well, your feelings, whatever they are, are still valid. I guess what I am trying to say is please treat someone’s loss as you would the loss of any parent. They would still like a card, or flowers, or offers to attend the funeral, or a cry over a bottle of wine.”

Also a thread woven into the Father’s Day tapestry are the surrogate dads – those who have generously offered up their sperm to cocreate someone they may never meet. Adoption & Surrogacy Choices Colorado offers up 8 Ways to Celebrate Birth Fathers on Father’s Day that might help donor dads through the day.

Childless fathers

And then there are the fathers who will grieve the loss of a child or the fact that they won’t ever be a father. Larry Carlat wrote an excellent article for Psychology Today titled Why Guys Suck at Grief and How they can Suck Slightly Less. After his son suicided, he wrote a book titled, A Space in the Heart - a Survival Guide for Grieving Parents which offers solace to parents who have had the unthinkable happen.

And Alex Belth wrote a tender essay for Esquire.com titled I'll Never be a Father, Finally I'm OK with it.

I always feel inspired by people who are so willing to wear their hearts on their sleeve in front of a digital audience of millions. Thankfully, COPE the Australian Centre of Perinatal Excellence provides mental health support for families going through the grief of involuntary childlessness.

There are many other threads to the tapestry of emotions that will be tangible this Father’s Day that I haven’t mentioned here, and my heart goes out to all of you who won’t be jumping for joy because of this date stamp on the annual calendar.

And to those who are fortunate enough to be celebrating Father’s Day with a Dad present whom they respect and love, please also be particularly mindful that your friends, family, workmates - even strangers you pass on the street or who serve you in cafes - may be feeling loss on Father’s Day, so please be especially kind and caring to them.