Happy Father's Day

They say that time is a great healer, and like many cliches, it's a cliche because it's so often true. It's been about 2 1/2 years since my father died, and it's become easier and easier to focus on the good memories of him. The other day, my oldest kid was playing the piano and my heart stopped for a second: it was Chopin's Raindrop Prelude, which was my father's favorite piece by his favorite composer. He used to say that because the prelude was inspired by the notion of raindrops falling on a dead person, he wanted the song played at his funeral. (He was Little Miss Sunshine, sometimes, eh?)

In honor of Father's Day, here are some more of the good memories that I have of my dad--random things, in no particular order and with no intended symbolism.  Just things that have popped into my head lately:

• My dad knew an amazing amount about World War II. He was born in 1934, so he had vivid childhood memories of significant events in the war. He had several uncles who served in the war, which probably also helped pique his interest in the war. He very clearly remembered Pearl Harbor, and listening to FDR announce the attack on the radio. He even used to do a horrible imitation of FDR:  "Last night, the Japanese attached Pearl Harbor." (He refused to ever buy a Japanese car because of Pearl Harbor. (!) )He had a special fascination with the technology of WW2 and knew a great deal about the tanks and weapons used. 
• He loved to read. (Obviously this is where I inherited it from.) And every once in a while, he'd slip me five or ten bucks and tell my mother to take me to the mall so I could go to the Walden's bookstore and buy books.
• He used to say the word "cubbyhole" like this:  COO-bee-hole. I told my kids this recently and they found it hilarious. Now it's a running joke in our family.
• He was born on July 1 and really was a summer kind of guy. He loved to swim and he loved baseball. The Mets were his team. He loved watermelon; fresh summer tomatoes (a tomato-and-cheese sandwich was his favorite); and could eat a bowl of cherries in a minute.
• He passed the entrance test to be a contestant on Jeopardy. This won't surprise anyone who knew him, as he always had an encyclopedic knowledge of random topics and trivia. He wasn't able to be on the show, though, because the network insisted that contestants spend a certain minimum amount of time in New York until the show was ready for them, and he couldn't do that.
• Whenever we went out to a fancy dinner and ordered wine, he insisted on putting the entire contents of the salt shaker into the ice bucket because he said it made the bottle get colder faster.
• He loved Star Trek, the original one with William Shatner. He never really got fascinated with any other science fiction the way he loved Star Trek, though. Some of his favorite episodes were the one with Nomad; "The Gamesters of Triskelion" and the one where Mr. Spock fights Kirk to marry the Vulcan lady. He was never a big fan of the Tribbles one, though.

Happy Father's Day. I hope you have nothing but good memories of your dad, and if he's still around, and lives close by, go and make some more good memories of him. Some day you'll be glad you did.

A message for my kids

Dear Kids:

Today is Father's Day and so I am going to tell you a little bit about your dad. You may think you know all about him, but you don't, not really. You probably don't realize yet what a wonderful father he is, but I hope you will someday. I don't have a great relationship with my dad: he has a lot of problems that he's never worked out and it stopped him from being the best dad he could be. It makes me more happy than you can understand to know that you are experiencing a completely different kind of fatherhood than I did.

Before Daddy and I got married, I wasn't even sure I wanted to have kids. I didn't know how I was going to combine having kids and being a lawyer, and I wasn't sure I would be able to be the kind of mom I wanted to be. Daddy and I talked about it, and he said, "Of course we have to have kids. What else is there?" And he said, "You'll be a great mom. Anybody who loves their cat as much as you do can't help but be a great mom." His complete certainty and confidence about it helped me work through my doubts.

You probably have heard me talk about hard it was for me to get pregnant. Daddy and I went to the doctor a lot to find out if they could help us. Daddy never complained, even when they did icky tests and took blood. He went with me when I had icky tests and had to give blood. And when we went through the second round of tests after J. was born, he would make sure he was around to take J. to school or pick him up, even though he has a demanding job, in order to make sure I didn't have to worry about it. Once again, when I had doubts and wondered if things would ever work out, Daddy's quiet confidence made me feel better.

And now you are here. You don't realize it yet, but your dad is an amazing father. He was there when you were born and even when the doctors took ultrasound pictures of you before you were born. He has changed your diapers, cleaned up your puke, fed you, hugged you, read to you, and regularly gets down on the floor to play with you. He plays pretend games with stuffed animals and talks in a high squeaky voice to make you laugh. He teaches you things, like letters and how to pet the bunny gently, and yells at you when you do stuff wrong to make you a better person. He believes you can do anything in the world you want to. He goes to your Little League games and your school conferences. He insists on having holidays at our house so we can make them happy, stress-free times. He nags you to brush your teeth and wash your face so you don't have cavities and zits. He works long hours at a job that doesn't thrill him sometimes, so you can live in a nice house and go to a good school and have all things you need and most of the things you want. Sometimes he comes home from work in time to have dinner with us, only to go upstairs and work into the wee hours at night, because he'd rather work upstairs after you're asleep than stay late at the office and miss putting you to bed each night. He doesn't complain (much) about how little sleep he gets, or how little time to himself he gets, or how we don't travel very often, or how he can't buy expensive stuff for himself the way he used to.

Today is Father's Day, and I wanted to try to make you understand how special a dad you have. I hope when you get older you will be able to, and I hope when you get older you will be parents that are as kind, attentive, gentle and there (physically and emotionally) as your dad is. So let him sleep in today. Give him extra hugs and kisses and tell him you love him.

Because he's one in a million gazillion.