Stop and smell the Roses
Spring is a beautiful time of year. The birds return, the trees bloom and you remember why it is you kept going through the depressing winter months. You suddenly remember the smell of fresh cut grass and the wonderful magic that takes you back to the first time you played baseball or rode a bike. The ice cream truck’s melody draws you back to summers spent with friends, trying to cobble together enough quarters for a chocolate with sprinkles. You remember when family barbecues were about swimming and playing baseball, not politics, or work.
I have to confess, I never used to notice spring. I missed–ignored, really–the cherry blossoms and the magnolia trees. I was always so busy. In high school it was football, or chess club or mathletes (don’t laugh, I have the medals to prove it). In college, well, you never notice anything in college, I’ve come to understand that to be the point. Graduate school and law school held their own distractions. When I finally joined the working world, 80 hour work weeks at a law firm and constant pressure to bill my time blended days, weeks, months and seasons into a continual blur of mahogany and beige.
Last year, though, I noticed. This year I realized how ridiculous it was that I hadn’t before. A year ago Friday, in the midst of my personal and professional distractions: searching for a new job, reviewing proxy statements, layering more gold on more golden parachutes; my father taught me his last lesson. His sudden death came as a stark and painful reminder of how fleeting life is. In death, he made clear the point he had tried to make with me for half of his life: our time here is short, make the most out of it.
The next morning, my father, my best man, was gone.
I had called the night before, accidentally interrupting dinner. The quick call, with my brother, reminded me that Dad was driving him to the airport in the morning. I could hear my father joking in the background, as he always did. The next morning, my father, my best man, was gone. It was a random Wednesday in May. There was no warning, there was no time to say goodbye. His heart, the greatest and most admired part of him, had given out.
In the weeks and months since, I have tried to make sense of the senseless. Is there a plan for each of us laid out by a higher power? Are we wandering aimlessly, the victims and benefactors of cosmic chance? Or are we all just meat-powered machines that come and go like insects? I cannot pretend to answer any of these questions, but my father’s passing has reminded me that ancient wisdom is wisdom for a reason. There is a simple elegance in why tradition and values maintain, when fads come and go. We may not always understand it, and as thinking people, we are bound to question it. Although it may be a platitude or cliché, there is a reason that people still remind those they love to stop and smell the roses. Even if it’s on a random Wednesday in May.
Dan, very touching tribute to your father, my very dear friend. As you well know he was loved by everyone that knew him, how could you not love a person that wouild never speak ill of another human being. What a world this would be if everyone was like your dad.
Dan,
VERY well said … you always come up with the perfect words to voice how we all feel. I remember your phone call – and that dinner – like it was yesterday. I’m sorry you weren’t able to speak longer with him that night. Our world changed dramatically the next day with dad’s final lesson. Thank you for putting it all into perspective for everyone.
Thank you, Dan. Your Dad’s passing, as well as the way he lived his life, was a true lesson to all of us who knew him, and to those of us who continue to be in his family’s lives. John’s friends and family suffered a mammoth loss, but be assured, it was not in vain. He reminds me every day!!
Dan, your mom passed the your site me since I am close to her (relativley speaking as a co worker) and I too lost my dad a few years ago.
Several years ago I changed my career direction from a 70 plus hour week job to something where I go have breakfast with my only child ( 13 year old son who lives with mom – yes, the 70 hr weeks did takes their tool), and watch his soccer games on weekends, help him with his math or science homework regulary. I too was a unlabeled ‘Mathlete’. Yesterday I picked him up from school and we went and had an Italian ice, seems that elixir gives us the confidence to share thoughts that dads rarely get to hear from their sons.
Take strength that our dads are looking down and smiling.