A Tribute for Daddy

The earliest childhood memory I have is of being with my father in the water. He had taken my brother and me swimming just off the rocks not far from where we lived in Pembroke Park. In later years, I brought up this vivid recollection in conversation, and he was visibly stunned.

“You remember that???” he asked, and I responded by mentioning that I was 2 yrs. old then.

“You were younger than two,” he replied, as we shared our special secret.

I am grateful as his daughter to have such a long memory of time with my Dad that began in the ocean; a focal point for both our lives.

Throughout childhood, I was in awe of my Dad. He could easily dispense with spiders. Assemble and repair toys (or anything else). Fix the car. Search and destroy a roach at all hours (pretty much only for me after I’d nearly exhausted a whole can of bug spray). Build kites. Climb poles. Cook up a storm and manage all tasks plumbing and electrical, just for starters.

Daddy.

First love and hero.

He exuded calmness no matter how intense or scary the conditions and this always put me at ease.

But he could also be quiet___incredibly quiet unless he had something to say. This trait unfiltered he passed to me and it characterized my early years and school report cards. Over the years, I think back to the countless conversations that we shared consisting of no words actually being spoken, and I am grateful for the peace between us where volumes of information were exchanged that nobody else could hear.

It was only at my Dad’s retirement celebration in Florida that I first asked him how he learned to sail. I was surprised when he told me that his father, a master sailor, agreed to teach him the craft. He allowed Dad to step on to his yacht, My Mary, and then sail off as he left him watching from the dock to figure it out on his own. As my Pa’s boat was his livelihood, the stakes were high, but my Dad survived and thrived on the water as sailing became as necessary as breathing to him. Favored to sit beneath two generations of master sailors, I will always remember their faces set on the sea, hand on the tiller and full of life at full sail.

I watched him attend business in some form or other at just about every boat club on the island while growing up, but his mainstay was of course the West End Sailboat Club. I’m sure the family car could reach it on autopilot as well-worn tire tracks imprinted the asphalt from home to club. My days there were spent fishing and swimming off the dock as the comet class boats raced before me in the Great Sound. At the end of the day’s racing, I had only to be near the boat slip to be taken for a sailboat ride. My Dad would take me and any playmate with me sailing into The Sound on My New Mary. I will never forget those sailing trips that felt like they could last forever.

To say that my father loved to travel would be an understatement. He could be at the airport at the drop of a hat and had a reputation within our family for packing at the last minute and being at the airport in record time. This was the pre 9/11 golden travel era and it was sometimes a running but true joke that we would find out my Dad was going abroad when a family member asked if he needed a ride to the airport or informed us that they had just dropped him off for his flight.

My Dad just had a sense of exploration for the world and would rent a car with his trusty bunch of maps in a heartbeat driving anywhere and everywhere.

He had such a big heart that no one could match him.

He made sure that we got to travel with him and even into our adulthood would surprise the whole family with a paid vacation. I only realized in looking back that my Dad was making memories at every available opportunity and he gave us a seemingly infinite amount to choose from.

But there were important lessons as well. Never once did I see my Dad call in sick from work. My father’s work ethic was ironclad and whatever task he began was done to the best of his ability, no matter how long it took (and sometimes it could take really long!) It was something you just accepted as my Dad was one of the most humble of men to grace the planet.

Without the confines of any religion, my Dad demonstrated love, respect, commitment, and genuine care for others that would touch the hearts of even the hardest souls. He was the first to take you to dinner, open his home to you, or be your rock in the harshest of storms. You trusted him implicitly and could refuse him nothing because he gave so much.

He had ‘sink or swim’ teaching methods as well. I remember how he taught my brothers and me timekeeping by secondary school without a word:

Be in the car before I pull out of the driveway for work or you get left.

He could wake up and be washed and dressed in 20 mins! I distinctly remember walking out the front door to exhaust fumes twice and having to catch the bus to school.

He taught by example and in his quiet way also showed us how to gracefully accept loss as he buried first his own father and then his mother, whom we loved beyond measure, while my brothers and I were still young adults. It couldn’t have been an easy lesson to teach, but from my father, I learned that everyone at some point must let go and then cherish, honor, and remember the life lived well. And after that, be sure to go out in the world and make as many sweet memories as you can, for in this way, those you love will always be with you.

I thank you, Daddy, my trailblazer, with all my heart.