One Day

I’m going to relate part of a conversation I had with Dad a couple of summers ago that gave me a little insight into my father. First, let me preface by saying, Dad and I used to sit in the garage or the backyard during the summer months, both of us always preferring to be outdoors versus indoors, especially when the weather is nice. Summers in Maine are pretty spectacular and one of the reasons he retired up here (and why PJ and I followed suit). Dad and I would sit outside sipping martinis (he is the only one I know who drinks them besides me) and talk for what seemed like hours as the sun went down. I knew at the time, those were special moments that would stick with me and make me smile for years to come. He would tell me stories about his parents, stories about growing up, always lots of stories. The man liked to talk. None of the stories were new either. He liked to repeat himself (a character trait I seemed to have inherited from him). I asked Dad one time if he was close with his father, my Opa. I knew he was close with his mother, but Opa passed away from lung cancer caused by asbestos when I was 6. Dad was 33. Afterwards, Oma came to live with us until her death a month and a half shy of her 100^th birthday in 2004. Opa forever holds a place in my heart as the kindest person I ever met. If you ask others that knew him, well, my sentiment is not alone because it is also theirs. But my grandparents were 40 when they had Dad. In 1944 that was pretty old to be having a kid and needless to say the age difference was considerable for the times. So when one summer night I asked Dad if he ever had any conversations with his father about this or that he paused for a moment, then replied, “You have to understand, my father was already such and such age by the time I was a teenager. He worked long hard hours (he was a machinist and mason) and when he came home he was tired. I was a teenager. What teenager do you know that wants to hang out with their parents? So we didn’t talk much.” I could hear a twinge of regret in his voice when he shared this with me. It was as if life had just gotten in the way, as it has a tendency to do, yet I felt it was something he had wished he had done before it became too late. Funny how things end up one day all of a sudden becoming too late. Should have, could have, didn’t because of a million and one excuses right? We all do it, I have most certainly been guilty of it. Are the excuses we make to ourselves worth it though? Don’t let the opportunities you have in front of you now, to make connections with the people closest to you, become a too late scenario one day. Take advantage of the time you have, because one day will be here before you know it.        



Dad helping his father (on the left) and John Pollack (on the right), who was one of their neighbors in Livingston NJ,  redo the steps on the back of their house, a weekend project Dad was less than thrilled to be helping with. I love this picture.