Father's Day

The churchbells peeled at noon and I can hear them as I write. Today is Father’s Day in the States and my dad is on my mind. If he were alive he would be 95, but he died the day after his 69^th birthday and after he shot his best round of golf ever.

As a child I really didn’t know him due to a crazy family dynamic, but when I was at university, a friend rushed up to me. “They’ve been looking for you everywhere.” At Administration he was waiting for me. I had not seen him for five years.

Perhaps if he had been there for my teenage years we wouldn’t have been able to form such a close relationship as we did as we did, adult-to-adultm which was started by that visit. Later I learned that my stepmom was the one who encouraged him to make contact despite his fear of rejection. I will always be grateful to her.

From that time on he was there for me, giving me loans when my university lost patience with my slow paying of my fees, encouraging me, standing behind me during the pain of my divorce.

He used to joke that he needed an address book just for my moves alone.

When I would tell him my latest crazy idea, he would say “Did you think of…” rather than “That’s the dumbest I idea I ever heard.” Over the years I learned whatever he cautioned me to think about was what happened, and part of me wishes just once he was wrong. I wish I could do the same with my daughter, but sometimes I get more directive and I have been wrong more in giving her advice then he was pushing me to think of this or that.

Only years after my divorce did I realise that he didn’t approve my husband.

And there was the time my sister and I discovered he was using Greecian Formula to die his remaining hair. In itself that secret was nothing, but his teasing on our ever changing rainbow of hair colors made it fun to return the teasing.

I still regret that I never realised that he was a bit jealous of my relationship with my Uncle Pat, another father figure who I also miss today. The two of them went into together to buy me a briefcase and I can picture the two of them, both who disliked shopping, making the sacrifice to enter stores to pick out just the right one for their budding executive.

My dad would neither have approved nor discouaged my move to Europe. He would have burst with pride that my books have been published. I wish he knew.

It was because of my dad that I knew I was right to “retire” early to have time to do the things I want.

After he died my Stepmom sent me a photo taken at his 69^th birthday party. It is shot from the back so I see his bald spot and his Greecian Formula colored fringe. A birthday cake decorated with golfer figurines takes up half the photo. He didn’t have many birthday parties because he was born so close to Christmas. I started to cry as I looked at it.

My daughter, then almost 14 came into my bedroom. “Don’t cry,” she said. “As long as you remember him, he isn’t really gone.” Today he isn’t really gone still.