Sept 2014
It has been 15 years since my father died. I have been missing him especially much this month, the anniversary of his death.
My dad’s parents were not very loving toward him, and so he didn’t grow up in a warm home. My dad knew that the way he was raised by his parents was not right, that they didn’t show him enough love and affection. He consciously set out to raise his kids differently. He succeeded.
When lighting the yahrzeit candle for my father a couple of weeks ago, I was telling my son Henry about his namesake grandfather who he never met. I said that Dad loved to give hugs, that he was a great father who always let me know how much he loved me, that he taught me a lot and that he also listened and learned from me. Henry said: “that sounds like you, dad.” I gave him a big hug and said that I try to be as good a father to you as my dad was to me.
I also told Henry (my son) this: “Grandpa Hank never had a chance to meet you, but if he could have seen you and got to know you, he would be so proud of you that you are carrying on his name.” You should have seen what a big smile Henry had on his face when I told him that. It really made him feel happy and proud.
I think if you had asked my dad, at the end of his life, what he was most proud of, what was most important to him, and what was his biggest accomplishment, he would have said being a dad. I am thankful he was my dad.
Sept 2017
The first thing I think of when I think of my dad are his hugs. My dad was a big man – six feet, six inches tall – and when he wrapped his arms around you, you felt hugged. He hugged with a passion. My dad grew up in a house with cold and distant parents. One reason he chose to be with my mom is how warm she was. Marrying her meant marrying into a close, loving family. Giving hugs was the way he lived out the difference from the way he was raised.
My dad was a man of his generation and class. He was at work at his corporate job in downtown Detroit every workday. I would see my dad in the morning at the breakfast table, where he read the Detroit Free Press and Women’s Wear Daily, while I read the sports section and comics. I tried to eat my cereal as quickly as he ate his, but I could never keep up (I learned some bad eating habits from my dad). I would see him again at dinner time. I remember waiting in our cul-de-sac or looking from my bedroom window waiting for dad to return from his commute, always at 6:15 pm. Sometimes in the evening, he would head to Temple Board meetings. On weekends, my parents would go out to dinner with friends or sometimes have friends over. I remember spying on my parents through the upstairs banister playing bridge with friends in the kitchen.
Though my dad conformed to the big things, he made his own way on many little ones. Hugging was only the obvious one: corporate businessmen didn’t hug, and certainly, his father never hugged. My dad also took a class in Transcendental Meditation in the 1960s and started meditating for 20 minutes twice a day every day of his life.
I always knew my dad loved me. He made it a point to spend time alone with me and each of my three siblings.
One day, my dad sat me down and said to me: “Lee, now that you are finishing college, I think it is time you did your own taxes.” I said to him: “Dad, you are a Certified Public Accountant. You have the training and experience that make you the best of the two of us to do taxes. Me, I am a philosophy major. If you have any questions about contemporary French philosophy, I am happy to answer them.”XThat exchange bought me a couple more years of my dad doing my taxes. But every time we got together after that conversation until the day he died, my dad asked me about philosophy
September 2019
My dad died 20 years ago. I have been thinking about how his time and place and class limited his choices.
His father most valued business acumen, and my dad grew up knowing he would be a businessman. He grew up in the family business, a large chain of women’s clothing stores in Michigan called – surprisingly enough – “Winkelmans”. As the youngest of four brothers in the business, he didn’t have much opportunity for leadership and creativity in his work. He wasn’t happy with his job and he ultimately sold his shares in the family business and went into business for himself, buying a chain of piano stores in Phoenix, Arizona. This new business was not a success, and that was hard for him. The ghost of his father, who would have judged him harshly for his business failure, hung over him. But I always admired my father for taking a risk, leaving a safe job he did not enjoy for something new and challenging.
I wonder what my father would have done if he had grown up with the idea he could have done anything instead of the certainty that he was going into business. My dad was smart but didn’t always have an outlet for his intelligence. When given the opportunity – like talking about philosophy with me – he seemed to enjoy it.
I appreciate that my parents gave me a different message than my father got when he was growing up. They encouraged me to find my talents and passions and pursue them. They never expected I would become a community organizer – perhaps they would have given me a different message if they had known that would be the result – but they were always proud of me.