I share this photo and rewrite this blogpost every Father’s Day. It’s one of the only pictures I have of me and my Dad, and it’s on the day of his second wedding. Decades later, I would accompany my father as he sang at his own funeral – and you can hear what he sang.
But let me go back a few decades …
About 30 years after this picture was taken, my father finally met and married his life’s true ally: his 3rd wife, Harriet, and my Dad’s dedication to connection – no matter how awkwardly – is one of the things I most deeply admire about him.
I spent very little time with my father after I was a year or so old – maybe a month total, in the rest of my life – maybe 25 or 30 conversations. Such a small amount of time. So much distance and disconnect. And yet…
And yet my father has – and still has a huge impact on me. He lives inside my fundamental weaknesses and my deepest strengths – our relationship keeps deepening each year after his death — and his voice is one of my greatest life’s treasures.
He sang songs I loved as a child: Oh Susanna, Camptown Races, Oh, What a Beautiful Morning -and he kept singing them my whole life – and it’s one of my life’s heartaches that we didn’t really sing together, like I did with my Mom.
About five years before my Dad died, I asked him if he’d make a recording for me of the songs I heard him sing when I was a kid.
He did that for me. And not just a few songs. He filled two sides of a cassette with the story of his life, the songs he sang with stories of when he sang them and how the songs and his life connected.
I didn’t realize how much we shared the fundamental language of stories with music until then. And at the time I didn’t realize what a huge gift that cassette was. (How typical is that of kids and the present their parents give them?)
I wish I’d thanked him profusely. I wish I’d let him know I’d listen to it over and over. I wish I’d danced around the room with that cassette – though if I had, no doubt he’d have told me to tone it down – like he did when he saw me perform on stage.
That cassette was a gift of love – and more importantly, a gift of himself – a gift of his voice to me.
The moment I received it was like the moment you put a seed in the ground, for a tree that will bear fruit many years later – and more fruit each year. He shared his voice. His commitment to making me that recording, to giving himself to me after a lifetime of separation, was the moment we began to reconnect.
It was the first thing I ever asked him for. He waited a lifetime for that request. And when it finally came, he poured his heart into it.
At the end of the recording he talked about his struggle with depression, and the Charismatic Christian movement that helped him start healing that depression – a part of his life I knew nothing about. He did not talk about A.A. but I suspect now that that was also a huge part of how he saved his own life.
What I did hear, loud and clear, was his dedication to living, to reaching out, to getting help — and that dedication — in a man I spent very little time with while he was alive — supports me more and more every day of my life.
The recording my Dad gave me was all off-the cuff – just him talking and singing, no instrument and rehearsal — just his voice and a cassette recorder. After he died, I took the last 6 minutes of the recording and added accompaniment to it: piano, strings – and here is us together, my Dad and me:
At his funeral I shared the recording for the first time: My Dad … and me making stories with music together.
Together.
That’s how my father sang at his own funeral. Sometimes it takes a whole lifetime to find a way to share the words of love with those we most want to say them to – in a way they can hear.
It’s never too late.
Happy Father’s Day to everyone who’s ever gone by the name of ‘Dad’…
(Here’s a 2017 blogpost inspired by this same photo HERE.)
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Deborah, that was beautiful and touching. I wanted you to know how much this and the one you shared of your mother helped me. My Mom didn’t do everything perfectly and some things were stellarly awful. We all have our non kodak moments and I am not immune.
After reading you and your Mom’s story, it got me to thinking. I’ve always tried my best to be good to my Mom. 3 times we didn’t talk for a year and a half to two years. She is in a nursing home now and I visit often. Though I always felt a pain in my heart over childhood wounds. After reading your piece on your Mom, I went to see her and started talking about all the memories that were GOOD. It was so healing and I am so glad you shared your own experiences as they helped heal my relationship with Mom. She had a tear in her eye as I told her at the end of my wonderful memories of her, that she was a STELLAR mom, and I meant every word.
Love,
Cheryl Forest
Dear sweet Deborah,
What a deep and insightful message you share here! And what a treasure your Dad left you. I’ve never seen this photo and never knew this story, but I am so thankful you are sharing it with everyone. I, too, believe in open communication. I feel it cleanses our soul and keeps our relationships real. I thank you for sharing this with us, and if it’s OK with you, I would love to share it with my children.
Of course Claire, dear cousin (and by the way, I hear YOUR voice when I read your words … even without a cassette).
Thank you Deborah for sharing. Happy Father’s Day to all Dad’s!
Your Dad had a lovely voice and your tribute to him is commendable. Bless you all
So lovely….and a treasure for all of us. It really lifts me up to hear your dad’s heartfelt singing–enhanced by your gentle accompaniment! A heavenly collaboration! I know your dad is as happy as you are at this connection between two souls who love each other eternally! And are always there for each other!
God has blessed you both, Deborah and Burt! You are together always!
Love,
Debbie
Thank you for stirring memories this morning. I remember riding in the front seat with my dad in our station wagon. When a song came on the radio he would beat out the rhythm on the metal horn with his wedding band and Masonic ring. That percussion was the basis for my musical training and for learning to fly with him across a ballroom floor. When he sat with the family in church instead of the choir, I cringed at the booming voice that overpowered the thin melody singers around us and brought attention to our pew. But as I grew older we would have many moments like that, his spot on bass to my alto harmony, blending together in a sea of Lutherans. Here’s to dads whose voices still reasonate years after they are silenced.
Dear Deborah
Thank you for sharing the love between you and your father. Love and presence is not about quantity, but quality. And the connection between fathers and daughters are not limited to this life. Love is eternal.
I enjoyed your accompaniment to your dad’s song.
And your celestial voice in the Nightingale song.
Thank you so much.
You are such a beautiful person and an inspiration for me. I struggle with depression and had to sell my harp to put a down payment on a house after my father died. Maybe one day I will find it and buy it back. I remember who I sold it to. I’ve love the harp my entire life and getting to play was the highlight of my life. I live vicariously through you and your stories. I met you at the Blue Note in NY back in the nineties. You recommended I get a Fishman transducer, which of course, I did. Thank you for being you and making a difference in so many people’s lives
What a wonderful blog. Tears reading and joy that you have this recording. a Beautiful Father’s Day post.