Mom’s Day was a blast, I took my 90-year-old on a road trip south to Millarville for the Spring Market for some blackberry wine, subtly different honeys, and fresh veg. Lunch after at a place I used to drop in to when I rode more than drove, the quesadillas were still the best.
Dad’s Day is different for me. I lost my pops in ’99, a rare disease took him far too soon. I miss him at the most random of times, but Father’s Day hits hard. Like it probably does for a lot of Messenger readers who have also already said farewell to their fathers.
Mine was a regular mentor and occasional tormentor, as all decent dads are. He pitched Major Men’s in Vancouver, it must have killed him inside to watch me strike out those hundreds of times, and yet he still believed in me. Teaching me to skate, use a stick, control a puck, and getting kicked out of games for yelling at the ref on my behalf. Me teaching him to downhill ski, we had a cabin at Panorama before there were condos or chairlifts. Yes, those three-hour blinding blizzard Friday and Sunday night drives in his Buick were my 15-year old’s driving instruction school. He was an early director at Redwood Meadows; we used to go out and clear trees from the roughs so the paid crews could focus on creating the greens. He built confidence and awareness in me through so many life opportunities to meet and network with people I have had in my life for decades.
I came home from thumbing around the Med and Middle East to find he had somehow picked up one of the four Apple dealerships in Alberta in 1983. Months before the Mac was first released, for perspective. I was lost, I had dropped out of my civil engineering program, but there he was, with the most amazing of opportunities waiting for me. I traded my beat up Canadian flagged backpack for a briefcase, and entrenched myself in a young industry notorious for products going obsolete before their manuals were printed. It would blossom into a couple decades of more travel, importing containers of hard drives and coprocessor chips, setting up offices in San Diego and Brisbane, and eventually leading into a career designing and implementing large project fibre optic and copper networks. I loved working with the man. Grade 9 educated, a salesman’s salesman, he taught me about questioning deeply, pausing, and listening for the answers, customer service, transparency, empathy, and personal ethics.
I will say hello and goodbye again this June 15, an annual pilgrimage to where we placed his ashes. Yes, I miss him … a lot. All I can ask of you, the reader, is that if your father is still with us, do reach out, hear his voice, his passions, share time and space. He will be gone one day, and it is far better to look back at memories and life changing moments shared, than just thought about “maybe one day” doing. And don’t wait for next year’s Father’s Day for a card manufacturer to remind you to reach out. Any day is Father’s Day… Call your dad…
Spike
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