Channeling My Dad

We are finalizing the details of tomorrow's memorial service, and friends and relatives have been kind enough to send me remembrances of my dad to include in the program.

Each of these missives is like a great big bear hug, enveloping me in a shared memory or, more often, a story from a part of my dad's life that I didn't know.

My dad was as kindhearted a man as you could ever hope to meet, and he connected with people in simple, sometimes unexpected ways every day of his life. He was especially solicitous of people who tend to occupy the background of our lives—the token-booth clerk, the parking-garage attendant, the shoeshine guy.

One of my favorite stories about my dad is this:

He had lunch several times a week at a diner near my parents' apartment. Most of the time, he had the same waitress. He got to know her pretty well and always looked forward to seeing her there. After a couple of years, she told him that she was leaving the diner and going back to school to become a nurse. Most people in that situation would have wished her well and left it at that. Not my dad. He took her to lunch to celebrate.

Earlier today I read a post on another blog that really captured my dad's essence: it's all about kindness and connecting with people. The post was inspired by a surprisingly positive encounter that the writer had with a clerk at the DMV.

I have to think that if my dad were among those in line at the DMV that day, the clerk would be the one writing the post, and it would start with, "I had the loveliest man at my window today. I only talked to him for the few minutes it took to process his driver's license renewal, and I'll probably never see him again, but he was just so sweet and charming that he made my day."

My dad truly had a gift. And what's amazing is that he never got tired of giving it.