This is an opinion column.

Roy (yeah, dad and I share the name — though I am not a “Jr.”) wasn’t around long enough for us to truly celebrate Father’s Day. Or maybe it’s been so long now memories of the day have been stolen by time. He left this life when I was 11 years old, defeated by prostate cancer; my brother was eight.

I still honor him each year. I honor him by being grateful for the time we shared, for the life he poured into me, for the guidance he still provides.

For the love I still feel when I look at photos of him. When I look and wonder more about the man he was.

I don’t think of him with sorrow. Quite the opposite. I think of him and smile.

I smile at how he rarely looked toward the camera for photos, trying to avoid the glare of a flash on his glasses.

I smile at the story of how overprotective he was of his oldest son, how he warned Ms. Veola, the woman who often watched me while he worked, not to let me play too close to the street. “I grew up in the country, where kids could play outside,” she’s often shared. “Roy was so scared he didn’t want you to play in the front yard. I let you, though. You’d be alright.”

I smile at the story of him nervously trying to mind the store he owned on Greenwood Avenue, in “Black Wall Street” while on the phone with Aunt Bobbie, who was at the hospital monitoring the contraction intervals during labor. When a customer asked him the cost of an item, Aunt Bobbie often shared with a laugh, “Your daddy said, ‘Five cents a minute.’”

I smile at memories of him dropping nickels in the jukebox at the store and dancing — by himself — to his favorites.

I smile at the photo of him standing next to me in a clean white jacket at my seventh birthday party. That man — and avowed Shriner — was heading to a party and as far away as he could get from a houseful of kids.

I smile at his promise of a dollar for every report card “A” then how he feigned being “mad” when I brought him all “A”s. Roy certainly knew how to incentivize Roy.

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I smile at him surprising us with a color TV, having it delivered and set up in the living room without telling us. (The first show I saw in color was Star Trek; I even remember the episode — “Arena”, because it featured a campy fight between Captain Kirk and Gorn, a green alien.)

I smile at learning years after his death that, well, Roy was a gangster. As I grew older, I sought to learn more about him by talking to folks who knew him. As one gentleman went on about Roy, he paused: “You know your dad ran the numbers, right?” If you’re not familiar, the numbers was (is?) the Black community’s roulette. Pick a number; if it hits, you win, if it doesn’t, well, you know.

I was stunned but quickly laughed out loud. I laughed because the revelation sparked a memory. There was an apartment adjacent to our garage. Dad’s office was there. When he came home from the store — Kyle’s Sundry on Greenwood Ave., the heart of Tulsa’s famed Black Wall Street — he usually went straight to the office to count money, etc.

I often joined him, usually playing with toys on the floor as Roy took care of business. The “numbers” revelation sparked a remembrance, of playing with capsules containing slips of paper with numbers inside. I innocently shaped the capsules into words or such.

“Those were the ‘numbers’!” I thought to myself — and laughed.

I smile, too, for the men who stepped into me and my brother’s lives, stepped in to fill the void Roy left. For Uncle Jimmy, my father’s younger brother; for “Uncle” Johnny, Veola’s husband.

I know everyone does not have fond memories of their father; some have no memories at all. For many, this weekend is hard or evokes no feeling at all.

If your father is still with you honor him on this holiday with a call, a text, with time. If he’s not, think of him still, and smile.