My dad used to be so, so loud.
Growing up, his voice would reverberate throughout our house. You knew when he had gotten home. Even if you were on the top floor and he was all the way on the bottom, you could hear him. I loved the sound – the long, flat As, the fact that it filled up space. It was comforting and safe and made me laugh. It meant he was home.
It may seem obvious, but his voice was his way of connecting. Notorious for asking a million questions (“Rate your happiness level on a scale from 1-10,” “Who are your top five best friends?”), he showed he cared through conversation. It was the way that he showed up – even when he couldn’t be physically present.
Maybe it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. Throughout my childhood, Dad was really busy, so busy it was hard to know how he fit it all in. He once told my husband, Phil, he had been tired for 40 years. But even while he was often off in far-flung countries, trying to convince members of the IOC that an Olympics in New York City was a good idea, or working late, he was always the parent who knew everything, who wanted to know everything, who wanted to be part of the fabric of our lives, who refused to skip a beat. He had the names of the kids in our classes down pat, helped us reason out papers, actually cared about our teenage dramas.
In the age of iPhones, this has meant that he Facetimes – a lot. The only difference is that now, it’s a lot more challenging for him to talk.
In the almost four years since he was first diagnosed with ALS, Dad’s voice has grown weaker. Today, it’s a bit halting, barely more than a whisper. Sometimes he can be hard to understand. I think it would be understandable if he wanted to retreat. If trying to talk, to connect, just felt too impossible.
But if anything, that desire to connect has only gotten stronger. He remains absolutely relentless.
These days, I speak with my father every single day, sometimes even multiple times. He Facetimes when we are just sitting down to dinner, hoping to catch a glimpse of his granddaughters, or sometimes in the middle of the day, when he has a break in his schedule. He does this with me, with my brother, and with my sister. The conversations look a little different, sure, but he is not the sort of guy who is going to let that get in his way.
Once he got sick, Dad decided that “the only things that matter are relationships and purpose.” We make fun of him for repeating this aphorism all the time – his habit of saying the same things over and over again makes him an easy mark. But the truth is, this is always how he has lived his life, it’s the reason he is who he is – and who we are, too.
And I’m sure within hours of finishing this, I’ll pick up my phone to find his face, asking me how many people I’ve spoken to today.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I love you.
