Life Without Father? One Father's Day, it will happen to you
Most of us will outlive our dads. And that means, for most of us, there will be a first Father's Day without father.
Mine is coming up. Sunday, June 18, 2023. I lost my dad in October.
Those of us who lost a father are, of course, the lucky ones. We had a father to lose.
There is an old story, about a merchant who asked a Zen master to write a proverb that would ensure the good fortune of his family. In pen and ink, the master wrote: "Grandfather dies. Father dies. Son dies."
The merchant was furious. "What kind of evil spell are you writing against my family?"
"It is no evil spell," the master replied. "It is a wish for your greatest good fortune. I wish that every man in your family should live to be a grandfather. And I wish that no son may die before his father. What truer happiness than life and death in this order can any family desire?"
Guide to life
I had the good luck to have a father all of my life, until now. And I had the greater luck to have a good father.
He didn't abandon the family when I was three. Nor did he make us wish he had.
He was not one of those fathers that novelists and playwrights always seem to get — the ones who inflict wounds, who traumatize their sons by insisting they live up to their impossible standards.
Which is probably why I have not written a great novel.
I have, as far as I can tell, no Daddy Issues. No lingering pain or resentment to talk to a therapist about. No demons to exorcise in a Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Not that it's anything to boast about. In the father department, I just got lucky. The last thing I want is to throw it in the face of someone who didn't.
But if my 60+ year relationship with my dad has yielded no "Death of a Salesman," no "Fences," no "Great Santini" it didn't leave me with nothing. Every hour of every day, something I do reminds me of him.
When I shave, I remember that it was my dad who taught me, at age 15, to wet my face with warm water. When I knot a tie, I can picture my dad standing behind me in the mirror, showing me how.
When I drive a car, I remember the late afternoons of patient driving lessons in an empty parking lot. When I go to the bank, I remember the day my dad helped me open my first savings account.
These are among the hundreds of little, unnoticed gifts that all fathers give their children. You probably have similar memories.
My dad's specific virtues — his gentleness, empathy, generosity, common sense, even temper, good humor — are also things I took for granted. Only now, in retrospect, do they seem uncommon. Miraculous, even.
The greatest thing he taught me — by example — was tolerance. Tolerance even for the intolerant, which is the great test. He thought most people had a decent side that could be reached, and reasoned with. Now more than ever, I hope he's right.
A gift in return
So for all the gifts my father gave me, what did I give him? One thing my dad probably had in common with your dad — and most people's dads — is that it was impossible to get him a Father's Day present.
Back when he smoked a pipe, it wasn't too bad.
It was possible, then, for an 11-year-old to go into a smoke shop and buy a pipe, a pouch of tobacco, and a box of pipe-cleaners, no questions asked. Generally I would get something preposterous — a Sherlock Holmes meerschaum, for instance, or a corncob (always cheap). Not exactly my dad's style.
My 6th grade sense of tobacco was, likewise, questionable. One year, I got him a cherry blend. Cherry is, at least, a comprehensible flavor to a kid. If they had had grape tobacco, I'm sure I would have gotten him that.
The best thing was the pipe cleaners. These could be swiped from my dad's desk, later, and used for all kinds of twisty, bendy fun.
When my dad gave up smoking, things become more difficult.
In the end, we usually got him button-down shirts. These too had their uses. Generally, they were backed by a shirt cardboard — prized by me and my brothers for various art projects.
At one point, we got into the habit of going through his drawers, and stealing the shirt cardboards from his dry cleaning. When he got annoyed enough to mention it, I suggested he take it up with the store. Evidently, for some reason, they weren't putting cardboards in the shirts anymore. He seemed unconvinced.
A year ago, I gave my dad his last Father's Day gift. Shirts, of course.
A snappy dresser to the end, he was happy to get them. He left a closetful — many, no doubt, from previous Father's Days.
His gifts to me? I still have them all. And every day, I remember a new one. Happy Father's Day, dad.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Father's Day 2023: How to navigate first without a Father
