A Special Episode: Honoring All Dads, A Father’s Day Tribute

Father’s Day can hit your heart from two directions at once: deep gratitude and deep grief. Shelly shares a personal message to honor the dads, bonus dads, and father figures who shape our lives, often in quiet ways that don’t get enough credit. This is a pause from the noise of wellness “shoulds” and a return to what supports real emotional well-being: love, connection, and appreciation while we still have time.

She talks about her own dad, the joy he carried, the way he made people feel seen, and how hard it was to watch him struggle with illness near the end of his life. She also honors her bonus dad, Rick, and the shock of losing someone unexpectedly. If you’ve ever looked back and realized you can “connect the dots” more clearly with time, you’ll feel this. We can miss them fiercely and still feel thankful they were ours.

Shelly also celebrates her husband Brad as an involved, intentional dad and reflects on what it means to make family a real priority in the middle of work, schedules, and responsibilities. Those everyday choices are part of wellness too, because mental health and family relationships are inseparable from how we live, cope, and heal.

If this resonates, share it with someone who needs a gentle nudge to reach out, and please subscribe, leave a rating and review, and tell me who you’re honoring today.

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Thank you for listening to the Words of Wellness podcast with Shelly Jefferis. I am honored and so grateful to have you here and it would mean the world to me if you could take a minute to follow, leave a 5-star review and share  the podcast with anyone you love and anyone you feel could benefit from the message.

Thank you and God Bless! And remember to do something for yourself, for your wellness on this day! 
In Health, 

Shelly

Transcript

A Personal Thank You

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is to say thank you to all of you, to honor all of you, and from my heart to be just spending time to of course honor and think about my own dad. I love and miss him so very much. And I love and miss Rick so much. But I can sit here with so much gratitude and joy for having them in my life.

Why Words Of Wellness Exists

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Do you get confused by all of the information that bombards us every day on ways to improve our overall health and our overall wellness? Do you often feel stuck, unmotivated, or struggle to reach your wellness goals? Do you have questions as to what exercises you should be doing? What foods you should or should not be eating? How to improve your overall emotional and mental well-being? Hello everyone, I am so excited to welcome you to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelly Jeffries, and I will be your host. My goal is to answer these questions and so much more. To share tips, education, and inspiration around all of the components of wellness through solo and guest episodes. With 35 plus years as a health and wellness professional, a retired college professor, a speaker, and a multi-passionate entrepreneur, I certainly have lots to share. However, my biggest goal and inspiration in doing this podcast is to share the wellness stories of others with you. To bring in guests who can share their journeys so that we can all learn together while making an impact on the health, the wellness, and lives of all of you, our listeners. The ultimate hope is that you leave today with even just one nugget that can enhance the quality of your life and that you will, we all will, now and into the future, live our best quality of lives full of energy, happiness, and joy. Now let's dive into our message for today. Hi my friends, welcome to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelly and I am your host. And thank you all for being here and tuning in. I appreciate you more than you know.

Father’s Day And Father Figures

SPEAKER_00 2:26

I want to do a special episode today honoring all of our dads. I most often speak to my moms out there, but with Father's Day just happening, I wanted to take a moment to honor all of our amazing dads out there. And I wanted to share a little bit about the amazing men in my life. And I thought this would be a special time to do so. And I don't know if the men in our lives, our our fathers, our dads get enough credit for all that they do. And I feel like I have been so blessed in my life with the men in my life. And I wanted to just share and honor them for a moment. And I thought, what a better time and place to do it on my podcast. So I hope that this brings a smile on your face of you thinking of your own dad or the special men in your life. It could be an uncle, a grandpa, a husband. There's there's different, definitely, definitely different individuals who can play important roles in our lives. And and I, you know, I don't take it lightly. My my dad was amazing, and I just think of him and and I smile because he was such a I want to say jovial person. He was just fun and loving and social and nice to everyone and had one of the best laughs ever and would give the best hugs. And I just am so grateful for him

Remembering Her Dad’s Warmth

SPEAKER_00 4:51

for him. And you know, it was really, of course, very hard seeing him battle the last few months of his life with various illnesses. And you know, I had the opportunity to go to the hospital, visit with him as much as possible those last few months and weeks of his life, and he just always had such a great heart. And so I wanted to again honor him, and he was also such a great grandpa to my kids, and he was one of those people that you would leave feeling better than when you came. Like I always would leave feeling happy after being around my dad. You know, it was always most of the time a positive thing. You know, we just we'd laugh a lot, he'd tell stories, and again, like I said, he just would had would just give the best hugs ever. And I love him. I miss him so, so much. He died in 2018. And I think about him all of the time.

A Bonus Dad Named Rick

SPEAKER_00 6:24

I also want to take a moment to honor my bonus dad, Rick. And I think about this, and I want to share this because I think I've talked about this, I've shared about him. And I often think that it's so much easier, and I and I think many of you will probably agree that later on in life you can think back to events in your own life and you can connect the dots so much easier than when you're going through certain things and experiences. And I think I'm just so blessed that I was able to have a bonus dad. He was my mom's actual third husband, and just again, huge heart, just a huge love, a big Italian man, huge hugs, also, also great sense of humor, and just a great person. And it's really tough. I did share on a podcast not that long ago that we he died suddenly back in November, unexpectedly. And that was very, very hard because he had been kind of ill, ill a little bit, but then it was looking like he was he was doing well and he was going to be better. And then next thing I knew, he he died, and it was very, very hard. And again, I I I think about him often, and I'm still so very sad that he is no longer with us here. Um, but yet at the same time, I am so grateful that I got to have him in my life. And gosh, we had so many wonderful moments, and he was a big part of our lives when my husband and I had our first two babies, our Cody and Jessica. He was he was a very big part of our lives at that time. And unfortunately, he and my mom did end up getting a divorce. So by the time our brae came along, he they weren't married any longer, and we really didn't see him very much. And uh stayed in touch, though. We stayed in touch in in recent years. I, you know, reached out and we got together and would, you know, spend time together, and it was just really, really special. So I'm very, very grateful for that.

Celebrating An Intentional Husband Dad

SPEAKER_00 9:12

And then last but not least, I want to recognize my husband, the father of our beautiful children, and just giving him a big shout out and honoring him as just being such a wonderful dad. And I have to say that in church on Sunday, on Father's Day, the pastor was talking about, he did a sermon on on fathers, on dads, and just talking about the different types of dads. And uh one of the types was an involved dad and an intentional dad. And I thought, wow, I've been so blessed to have that in my husband, the father of my kids. He has been so involved, always has been, always will be. And I am so grateful for that. And I just think about through all of the years we we made it work. You know, I give a shout out to all of you out there who are working and making it work and spending time with family, but then also holding down, you know, your jobs and all of the things that we do. We have so many different responsibilities. And sometimes I think back to those years when our our our kids were younger. It's like, wow, we did it, but wow. You know, some of you can, I'm sure, relate and like think back and go, wow, how did we do it? But we did it, right? And again, we made a point to to always be there and be at most all of the events and all of the things. And it was always my husband Brad saying, these are moments that we can't ever get back. So it was always first priority. Family was always first priority and doing whatever we could to be together and have Sunday dinners and be at each other's events and all of the

The Weight And Worth Of Fatherhood

SPEAKER_00 11:14

things. So I just wanted to take a moment today and just put out a special episode honoring the very, very special men in my life and giving a shout out to all of the amazing dads out there and honoring you for all the things that you do, all the work that you put in to your day-to-day, your job, your family, all that you do to take care of your families. And again, it's it's not it's never a perfect scenario. And again, some of you might have not have dads in your lives, and maybe, you know, again, it could be a father figure, you know, an uncle, a grandfather, or a a great, just an a father figure in your life who is who has played that role. And that is and this is to honor each and every one of you out there who have who has been a dad or who has stepped into that role. Because it's a big role. It's one of, if not probably the most important roles. And so this is to say thank you to all of you, to honor all of you, and from my heart to be just spending time to of course honor and think about my own dad. I love and miss him so very much, and I love and miss Rick so much, but I can sit here with so much gratitude and joy for having them in my life. And so for any of you who maybe your your dads are in heaven also, I hope that you can sit with gratitude as well and and honor them for all that they did for you in your life and all that they represented. And then of course, I love my husband so much, and I'm so grateful, so thankful to God for being blessed with him and for him being such a great dad to our three amazing kids.

Call Your Dad While You Can

SPEAKER_00 13:49

So, with that being said, take some time for yourself on this day for your wellness, but also take some time on this day to perhaps go visit your dad or whoever might be a father figure in your life, or give them a phone call and just tell them that you love them because the day comes when you can't do that, and it's really, really hard. So every moment that we have that we can share our love and appreciation for those who have loved us and who impacted our lives, I encourage you to do so. So, with that being said, everyone, have a beautiful, blessed rest of your week, and we'll see you next time on Words of Wellness.

Share, Review, And Reach Out

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. I hope you gained value and enjoyed our time together as much as I did. And if you know someone who could benefit from today's episode, I would love and appreciate it if you could share with a friend or rate and review Words of Wellness so that more can hear this message. I love and appreciate you all. Thank you for listening. And if you have any questions or topics you would like me to share in future episodes, please don't hesitate to reach out to me through my contact information that is shared in the show notes below. Again, thank you for tuning in to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelley Jeffries, and I encourage you to do something for you, for your wellness on this day. Until next time, I hope you all have a healthy, happy, and blessed week.