My dad wore his heart on his sleeve. Like it or not, you always knew where you stood with Joe. For me, this means having a king-sized quilt of memories to wrap myself in. I’d like to take this time to share some of those in no particular order to give you some snapshots of life with Dad…
How small my hand felt in his even after I grew up.
Going to my dad when my mom said, “No.”
Sunday trips to Boston—just the two of us—to learn about history and art.
The phone calls that came like clockwork if more than 4 weeks went by without seeing his grandson: “I don’t care about YOU. When will we see Toby?”
The look on his face when my mom was diagnosed and the knowledge that there was no balm to soothe that pain.
All the times he worried over people and tried to help everyone from family to those who worked for him
History books, maps, newspapers spread out on his bed in the evenings with PBS or a game on in the background.
Tears brimming in his eyes as he told me about the Civil War and his heroes like Abraham Lincoln.
Bedtime phone calls with Nora to the nursing home to cheer Pa Joe. “Hiii, Nora. Ooooh, you are a beautiful girl.” (He did love to flirt.)
Reading to me in bed when I was little
Walking with my parents through city streets, my father handing cash to every homeless person we passed.
His last night and my sister catching a brief nap in a chair, her head resting on his bed
My parents’ methodical dissection of the Boston Globe together over coffee every morning
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
The gentle way he kissed my mom
Our drive from Seattle to Andover after my heart got broken and I just wanted to be home. National Parks and the open road by day, drinks in the hotel restaurants at night. My Dad helped heal my heart on that trip.
Webb Lake
His nickname for Toby. The funny-faced kid. Because, he said, he never wanted his good looks to go to his head.
Fierce croquet games in the backyard
Long talks about mistakes and regrets
Walks in the woods
The articles he sent to me about how the big earthquake was coming and Seattle would break away into the Pacific Ocean.
His sage advice to quit my job at Amazon because any jerk could sell books on the internet
My parents singing around the piano with their friends well past my bedtime
Thanksgivings and Christmases and his apple pies
I have many, many memories of my dad and not all of them are sugary sweet. He often said he was “imperfect.” He was, of course, and aren’t we all. But I’ll leave you with a little story I was told that last night at the nursing home. I said to a nurse that I didn’t know how anyone slept there with some poor residents up all night yelling. She said, “Yes, they can be quite disturbing. Your father used to go talk to them.”
“I bet,” I said. “He must have been pretty irritated.”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” she said. “He used to try to help them. He’d go out to them and tell them everything would be OK…and then he’d come to the nurses’ station and tell us to get moving.”
That was my dad. I loved who he was and I’ll miss him big time.
