Father's Day without my dad. It's not easy. We always did something on this day. Often he and my stepmother would came over for dinner and we'd eat Hugh's risotto or lamb. My dad would take a few sips from Hugh's collection of scotch (some Oban, Balvenie or Laphraiog) and we'd stand in the kitchen and talk. I loved those dinners with my dad at my house. Especially when my father sat down at the electronic piano and played his free-form version of jazz. I usually bought him a book I though he'd enjoy from the Community Bookstore — something about philosophy, jazz, birds, or horse racing.
What did I get him last year?
Why can't I remember what we did last year?
Yup. I'm missing my dad on Father's Day. He told me that he wasn't a big fan of the holiday but that he appreciated the fact that we made such a big deal about it. I wonder now why he wasn't a big fan. Or if he was kidding.
And I'm feeling bad, bad, bad. Last year I didn't write a Smartmom column about about him on Father's Day. That's because early on he'd asked me not to mention his illness in the column and I guess I thought a Father's Day column might be maudlin and sad and too elegaic. In some ways, I never wanted to admit to my dad that I knew he was dying. I think we acknowledged it by not acknowleding it. It makes me sad to say that but it's true (I think we were very close that way). Also, Gersh, the editor of the Brooklyn Paper published, a piece by a dad about Father's Day instead of Smartmom. After the fact my dad said, "I thought you'd write a Smartmom about Father's Day." I was startled and stricken. There was something so poignant about him saying that. I forget now what I said. Now I just keep flashing on that conversation and feeling so very sad.
There's so much I'd like to ask him now that I never got around to say. That's life (or death) I guess.
Here is an excerpt from a letter my lovable and funny dad wrote in
1958 to his parents just weeks prior to the birth of my sister and me.
My stepmother gave me boxes of letters from my dad to his parents. They
are absolute gems and I treasure them!
Especially this letter. It's amazing being inside his head just before that momentous event
Birth is expected in a couple of week and I am pretty nervous about it. Up until now the idea of a baby (babies) has been pretty much taking them to their first ballgame, dressing them in Eton suits and listening to their first gurgles of gratitude.
But now, the day by day reality becomes clearer, and I wonder how we'll handle such things as squalling nights, plastic ducks all over the bathroom and shelves full of those terrible picture books. To say nothing of colic, uninhibited bowel habits and stubborn refusal to eat. In addition, the idea of pacing the hospital waiting-room for hours, without knowing what's happening to Edna, doesn't strike me as better than going to the movies.
Oh, well, it will all be over soon and the joy of having them will, I suppose, put the doubts away. Did you like me at first or did it take a few years?
My job is about as eventful as Death Valley on a slow Tuesday. It's really the most boring place in the world and what reason I can't tell. The people are all nice, the accounts are not bad, the office is pleasantly bathed in southern light and the coffee wagon appears twice a day. But it's boring. I feel bored driving up in the morning and bored as I leave at night. Maybe it will get better. Maybe it's my mood about the babies that's causing it. The twins are all I can think of and writing ads only seems silly in comparison…
Photo of me looking at a picture of my dad, Monte Ghertler, from the Brooklyn Paper.
There’s never a day that goes by that I do not think of my Dad who passed away 8 years ago after a short battle with lung cancer. He was a heavy smoker who quit at the age of 35, on my 8th birthday, as a gift to me because I had been asking him to stop. (He was livid when I picked up the habit years later–stupid, I know–which didn’t last thanks to a boyfriend, now husband, who didn’t like kissing ashtrays.) There are many things I regret not doing with my father while he was still alive: learning to play the piano accompaniment to Beethoven’s Spring Sonata for violin and piano. I bought the music but never got around to learning the piano part. Being good enough at tennis so I could beat the crap out of Dad. Challenging Dad to another round of Scrabble. My father was a terribly flawed individual but it was his imperfection that in many ways endeared him to me even more. I was a total Daddy’s girl, a fact that many of his friends remind me, even to this day. I completely understood my father even though he tried very hard to hide his flaws from me. The thing I regret the most is not being able to let him know that I got him totally and loved him for it. Always have, always will.
Louise,
Your Dad was such an eloquent and vivid writer – he really sounds very cool. How lucky to have had a Dad like him. He must have loved your writing.
– Lisa Albin
What a moving column, Louise. I especially enjoyed your father’s letter. How wonderful that you have so many memories and mementos.