On Fathers Day

There are some years I cannot bring myself to write this email. It is not that I am still raw from the loss of my dad over a decade ago. It is more that I have nothing new to say. With each passing year of my own life, I understand his life a little better.

Today I want to remember him, and in kind, wish you a good day with your father, whether he is on this planet or not. And if you are a dad, I hope you enjoy the unique position you are in.

One of the things I was fortunate enough to realize while my dad was still with us is that I had a very special father. Same goes for my mom, who was with us until last year.

When I went to college I noticed how many kids had lousy relationships with their parents. I saw some of the interactions. Often the dad was doing his best to provide an education and a stable situation, and it just did not work out. I never understood how a parent could be paying for a college education and have an ungrateful kid sitting across from them.

In time I started to realize that both parents and children were judging each other by their own standards, with disappointments accumulated on both sides over years of decisions and behaviors that did not match.

I was blessed that my dad somehow had the wisdom to step back, watch, and not judge. His baseline was that as long as I was not doing bad things, and was at least pursuing something with a basic goodness to it, he would be thankful. That is a remarkable kind of grace for a parent. Something for any father to consider.

I came to my own conclusions and built my own life. It included some of what he had hoped for me, and a lot of what he could not have imagined. He never got to see how much I changed the basic paradigm of “being a doctor.” He never got to witness the advances and impact I have had on more lives than he could have foreseen.

I do know he is proud of me.

I will never forget the day he died. The cause is a story for another time. One thing I learned earlier, when my brother passed at a young age, is that there really are powers at work greater than us.

My dad started his career at a Jesuit hospital. The system changed over the decades he worked there, but some of the people who had been there when he was an intern in the 1950s were still there at the end. When he was a young doctor, Sister Josephine ran the place. She was, to a real degree, his boss. That all changed over the years. The night it was clear my father was dying, Sister Josephine, then 86, kept vigil and prayed at his bedside all night. When I walked in to say my goodbyes she simply smiled at me and touched my hand. She had ushered him into the hospital as a young intern. She was ushering him out.

One of the young cardiologists my dad had befriended and helped get started came in and broke down. When he could speak he said, “It is not that he is gone. It is that we will never see his kind again.”

When I left the hospital that April day the sun was warm. The sky was clear. Somehow on the way home one isolated thunder cloud appeared and I heard a single loud clap of thunder. Without thinking, I said the words, “Good Job Dad.”

My father led an amazing life. A life I can only aspire to in grace, equanimity, and love. I have plenty left to do. When it is time to go, I hope I can say the same thing about myself.

I can wish the same for you.

If you are a dad, have a dad, or miss your dad, there are always lessons to learn and love to give.

I hope there are lessons and love in your day today.

I will keep doing my best to help make sure you have the chance.

Dr Dave