I wrote this a year ago on my first Father’s Day without my dad. This is my second FDWD:

(written June 2009) Smartmom’s first Father’s Day without her dad wasn’t easy. They always did something special on that night. Usually, her dad — aka Groovy Grandpa — and Mima Cat came over for dinner. While Hepcat cooked risotto or lamb, she and her dad would stand in the kitchen, and he’d tell tales of his college days at U.C. Berkeley, or working at Papert, Koenig and Lois, that 1960s advertising firm where he wrote ads for Robert Kennedy’s Senate campaign, Quisp and Quake Cereals and the New York Herald Tribune.

Groovy Grandpa would gingerly sip from Hepcat’s collection of Scotch (some Oban, Balvenie or Laphraiog) and compare them, like the connoisseur he was. He always gave Hepcat a bottle for his birthday.

Smartmom loved those evenings with her dad at the apartment, especially when her father would sit down at the Casio piano and play his free-form jazz. He had no formal training and couldn’t read music, but somehow he managed to bang out tinkly renditions of some of his favorite Cole Porter songs.

For a Father’s Day gift, Smartmom would usually go to the Community Bookstore and buy him a book on one of his favorite topics like philosophy, jazz, bird watching, or horse racing.

He’d immediately start reading it and confirm that it was a very good choice.

“How’d you know I’ve been wanting to read this?” he would ask.

A couple of years ago, Groovy Grandpa told Smartmom that he wasn’t a big fan of the Father’s Day holiday, but he appreciated the fact that she and Diaper Diva made such a big deal about it. Now Smartmom wonders why he wasn’t a big fan. Or maybe he was just kidding.

Last year, Smartmom didn’t write a column about her dad for Father’s Day because when he first got sick, he asked her not to mention his illness in her column. She thought a Father’s Day column would be too maudlin, sad and elegiac.

About a week later, Groovy Grandpa said, “I thought you’d write a ‘Smartmom’ about me for Father’s Day.”

Smartmom was startled and stricken. There was something so poignant about hearing him say that. So this Father’s Day, she kept flashing on that conversation and feeling guilty and sad.

Truth is, she never wanted to admit to him that she knew he was dying. Now Smartmom feels bad about all the conversations they didn’t have. And terrible that she didn’t write about him last Father’s Day.

Not a day goes by when Smartmom doesn’t think of her dad. There’s so much she never got around to saying. That’s life (or death).

But it still doesn’t make her feel any better.

Smartmom found herself feeling low energy on Father’s Day. In the quiet of Sunday morning, while Hepcat and the kids were asleep, Smartmom went through a box of old letters that her lovable and funny dad wrote to his parents just weeks prior to the birth of Smartmom and Diaper Diva in 1958:

Dear Folks,

Birth is expected in a couple of weeks, 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?

Smartmom wonders how long it took her dad to like her and her sister. From the black-and-white photos, it looks like he was quite fond of his twin newborns quite early on. But who knows?

There is so much children don’t know about the inner lives of their parents. When you’re young, you can’t even imagine them having a life before you were born. Finding letters, notebooks, and journals is such a powerful way to learn more about the parents you think you know.

The night of Smartmom’s first Father’s Day without her dad, there was no standing in the kitchen hearing vintage stories. There was no jazzy tinkling of the plastic Casio keys. There was no tasting of Hepcat’s special Scotch.

But there were memories. Plenty of them. And the letters. They’re no substitute for the man but they offer a coveted insight into what was going on in his head just weeks before he became a dad.