Remembering Dad

Father’s Day.? It’s here every June, but the truth is we never know how many we get to celebrate with our dads.? For those of us whose fathers are no longer with us, today moves through us differently.

Memories don’t usually tie their appearance to the calendar.? They like their independence.? Pop in and out as they wish. But today…they flood. ???They’re binding.? Buoying.? Beautiful.

My mental shelves are bookended with memories of dad. He was an absolute original. His personality was larger than life and wildly contagious.? An energy field seemed to float around him, pulling you in toward it and holding you tight. A force of nature who warmed space simply by entering it.

Perhaps knowing that none could be taken for granted, Dad knew how to make moments count.? All of them.

Some weeknights, mom would pack a few coolers of food (understatement) and we’d pile in the station wagon and head to the park. Dad fired up the grill, mom set up the meal, and the 5 kids dragged picnic tables together to fit us all. We played and he would dash between the grill and the swings delivering ‘underdog pushes’ (remember those?) that belied gravity. I don’t know who had more fun: him from the ground behind us, or us squealing from the high heavens.

Meals fed more than your tummy. The table always fit one more.? It was impossible to not accept a plate of food once your feet entered our home. You’d come for a visit and leave with a nickname and Tupperware “in case you’re hungry later!”?? Even after my siblings and I moved away for school, our friends still went by to see him. Home wasn’t a pit stop. Dad made it an occasion.

We were dad’s power cord. His love for mom, and pride in his five kids was boundless.? Our eyes would hunt the gymnasium until they landed on him at the back – beaming – as he never missed a school play, concert, or game (even if he did have to park on the grass outside the gym doors to make it in time!)

As we got older, he collected all the business cards from every job we ever had. After starting a new job in Washington, D.C. and before I got home for a visit, he asked me to, “fax me your new business card” so he could add it to his collection in the meantime. ;)

Dad only wrote in capital letters.? Didn’t matter what he was writing: a grocery list…a letter to the teacher…a note on the fridge…everything was always – and only – in capital letters. That’s how he lived. ?In capital letters. His rolodex sits on my desk.? Some days I open the cover and spin the wheel just to see his handwriting again.? Those capital letters…

I miss so many things about him. Including his genuine interest in what was important to you.? He’d ask for and devour nearly microbic details of your day, with follow-up questions nobody else would think to ask. I remember saying once, in an effort to give an update but then get on to other things, “Dad, those details don’t matter.”? To which he’d respond, “But to me they do!”?? And they did. ?They always did.

Legacy isn’t built through title or rank.? It isn’t captured in a pile of achievements or a collection of fancy stuff. Legacy is measured in how you make others feel: how deep and layered the connections are.? And how many decades of memories they fuel long after we’re gone.

By this measure – and so many more – our dad’s legacy runs deep. He met only 1 of his 10 grandchildren but exists in every one. We tell them stories of Grandpa Dee as they hang on every word.? They delight in the ways they’re reminded how their personalities or features climbed out of his lineage.?

We can’t hug dad today, but every day those memories hold us.

What a legacy, indeed.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad. xo