I never knew my father's father. Either did my father, really. My grandfather died when my Dad was only three years old. You'd be hard-pressed to believe that, if you know or ever met my Dad. He could have written THE book on fatherhood. And he made it all up as he went along.
In a family flung to all corners of the continent, my Dad is now the effective patriarch of a large and loving clan. For decades, people have looked to him and up to him for guidance, for financial support, for advice. My Dad is a man who shows up. Even in the midst of his agony from osteo-arthritis, he is heading to Denver to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of his cousin, only to return home to have his shoulder replaced days later.
My Dad has enormous and unusual talents. He fixes things on his own. He sees a problem and invents a solution. I'm fully convinced the family home is chock full of patentable devices he merely gerry-rigged together. My father can fit anything into a car. He can fit a lifetime into a car. He has an innate and keen sense of spatial relations, something I utterly lack, so I would just stand in awe in the background while he piled my life into the back of a station wagon twice a year to and from college.
My Dad is a genius with money. He understands the value of a penny. Not a dollar, a penny. How he managed to put the five of us through college is a miracle, given the recessions of the 70s and 80s. But he showed up. He showed up to work under the most trying of varied commutes, some lasting two hours each way, in the fairest and most abominable weather for a job I've never been convinced he absolutely loved despite how admired and accomplished he was, because of his greater love for his family. His decades of employment was a sacrifice of love.
My father has given me the most profound advice I have ever gotten over the years. Most of it pragmatic, practical bits of wisdom for the moment. But two things he said to me, and when I was very young, run though my head every day of my life:
While painting a picture one day, he looked over my shoulder and said, "Art is knowing when to stop." I don't know how he knew that, but the three years I was studying acting in graduate school, it was a mantra that I heard in my mind in every single class. And every rehearsal I've ever been in since, his distinct gentle admonition rings clear and true in my imagination.
One day while riding in a car (my Dad is always particularly ON while driving a car, as he has spent the better part of his life in one) he said to me, "Jefferson (he calls me Jefferson, he is the only person in the world who calls me Jefferson, so don't even TRY it), I spend the day with men who do nothing but complain about their wives and their jobs. And all they are doing is telling me they have screwed up the two most important decisions in their life."
My Dad is in love with my Mom. But beyond that, he honors her, like a man, like a man with more integrity than any other man I have ever met.
My Dad is deeply religious. But like a truly religious man, he does not wear his religion on his sleeve. He volunteers in every capacity at church, he donates to any number of charities, he volunteers at a host of charitable venues, but you would never hear him speak of any of this. He is humility defined.
My father is a legendary disciplinarian. He can be intimidating. Neighbors and cousins would call him to speak to their children. But he uses that talent to maximum effect with minimum damage. My father never hit me. Ever. But I always thought he might if I got out of line. Neat trick, no? He's a better actor than I'll ever be.
I continue to seek the counsel of my father, as recently as a week ago. All of this would be a remarkable tribute to any man with as many gifts. But it is almost inconceivable that this tribute is to a man who improvised his entire life.
Finally, haven fallen last week and torn the skin on his knees and elbows, we were at the doctor's together and clearly shaken and in enormous pain, he said to the nurse tending his wounds, "Careful, I don't want to get blood on my slacks." You think there's good fashion on MAD MEN? Look in my Dad's closet. He invented the genre.
For his style, for his honor, for his great heart, for his humility, for his wisdom, for his generosity, for his curiosity, for his example, I want to wish my Dad an extra special Happy Father's Day. You are my hero, Dad. And I love you every moment of every day.
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