I was very lucky when it came to dads.
I’ve told you about him before, how he started his own one-man radio advertising agency in Tulsa, OK in the 50s, cutting radio spots in our home, working with a reel to reel tape recorder and working around jets flying over and other noise. My mom was his secretary for quite a while, scheduling the radio spots at the stations, handling finances, typing his spots so we had a written copy, etc. He was ahead of his time, making a name for himself while selling the products of his clients in a way that is still unusual. He won a lifetime achievement Addy award for his ‘unique contributions to advertising in the Tulsa area.
He taught me so many lessons about living that are priceless.
- How important humor is to life. He used humor to turn the bullies at his school who wanted to taunt him because he was handicapped (one arm was shorter than the other and the hand useless due to falling off a horse when he was 3.). He made the bullies laugh, want to be around him because of his sense of fun, and turned the situation from a challenge to acceptance by his peers.
- That trying something new is invaluable to your confidence, and that persistence in meeting the goals you set for yourself is the key to success. He moved his family from Levittown NY to the ‘hinterlands’ of Tulsa, OK in the 50s, with only one client, unsure if he could make enough money to support us. He figured he needed 3 clients who would pay him a retainer for us to stay afloat. My brother and I were unaware of the challenge, the anxiety, maybe even fear, that things might not work. He not only got the 3 clients he needed, he never had to make another sales call for a client once his spots started playing on the radio.
- He taught me that attitude is everything. He had to do everything one-handed, since his left hand was useless. He had learned to do this so well that many times I ‘forgot’ that others might consider him handicapped. He figured out how to do things on his own, or who to ask for help – though he did resent the fact that my husband, Harvey, made so many things look easy. My dad would practically kill himself trying to get whatever it was done before “___ Harvey” would come and make him feel useless. (the one time I saw my dad angry at someone was when we were downtown. There was a man sitting on the sidewalk with his hat upended and a sign asking for money. My dad stopped, saying nothing. The man held out his hat toward my dad. My dad took his left hand out of his pocket – showing the man a carbon copy of the one the man had – and said, “GET A JOB!” A relative was in an accident as a young man and felt that his life was over because he had so much trouble doing things with one hand. My dad essentially wrote a manual for him, with descriptions and sketches, showing how to do day to day things one-handed.
My dad gave me the gift of telling me it’s okay to be different. His lessons have helped me all my life, but particularly now, since I have left everything I have known in the States and moved to Thailand, where I don’t speak the language and everything is different in every way from what I’m used to. I have the personality portrait he painted of me when I was 6 on a glass print that Brian had made for me and gave me as a condo-warming present after I moved in. It reminds me that I carry him and all his lessons in my heart and that he is here with me.
I can adapt to the fact that my retirement is totally different from the plans my husband and I had just one year ago. I can put my husband’s needs above my own, going from where he is mentally each time my son and I visit him in the nursing home, concentrating on what we can bring to HIM each time, how we can brighten his day, how we might make him more comfortable. I can adapt to living by myself and building a new life for myself in my sweet little condo, cramming joy into each day, standing back and seeing the humor in situations, laughing when I can. I can slow down and appreciate all I have, seeing new opportunities as they arise.
I think of my dad often. Not only on Father’s Day, but particularly when I’m sticking my neck out, trying something outside my comfort zone. He told me, “Remember me laughing.” I hope people will remember me one day for realizing I’m the luckiest woman on the planet and embracing living in the moment.
