happy birthday, dad

it’s my dad’s 60th today, so I thought I’d share a few words about him

My favorite photo of my dad and I.

One of my favorite memories of my father is riding in the passenger seat, driving along some river in rural Oregon.

“Evie, see that?” He pointed to what appeared to be logs of driftwood sticking out of the river, close to the bank. “Tell me what those are for.”

This was not unusual, he often quizzed us on naming each mountain pass on the way to Medford, each river we see, if the day would bring good fishing. Violet and I rattled off ideas to explain the wooden spires. At each guess, he considered it and then shook his head and asked, “Think about it, over time what does a river do?”

“Erode stuff?”

“Yes, and what happens if the bank gets eroded too close to the highway?”

All at once we understood, and shouted over each other to give our finally realized answer.

My dad is a smart man, this I’ve known and will always know. But what has made him a great man is that he’s encouraged and challenged each of my sisters and I to ask why, to think critically, to equip ourselves with knowledge. It is a great act of love, I think, to challenge someone to be better, to think harder, to be smarter.

He will be 60 today and sometimes I feel so lucky that my family has gotten him all to ourselves, all this time. Today, people will call him and wish him a happy birthday, but it will be my sisters and mom who he will want to spend the day with. It is a privilege that does not go unnoticed by me.

My dad is smart, yes, but he is also incredibly kind. All too many times I’ve sat and listened while he’s given rousing speeches about why we should go all electric, reduce our carbon footprint. He’s the type of kind that extends beyond himself and his family. He wants to do right by the world, wants to see it last and flourish. He cries during claymation Christmas movies and when forest fires ravage Oregon’s forests. He sat me down once, during one of my many fits about not knowing what to do with my life, and told me that it ultimately only mattered that I was a good person, and lived a life I was proud of. “When I croak, I will know that I’ve done the best I could by the world,” he said. Which made me cry harder, to think of him being gone.

My family and I have lots of fun laughing at my dad’s expense. We poke fun and do impressions of his quirks. He is good natured about this, to his credit. While we find it fun to tease him, he makes up for it with his own sense of humor. I didn’t realize my dad was funny until mid high school, when I could really appreciate it. He’s silly, which most people probably wouldn’t guess from first meeting him. Silly and completely content with his own idiosyncrasies, much to my own delight when I grew up enough to recognize that my dad was fun. This opened a whole new world for me in spending time with my dad— I was starting to grasp that my parents were people just like myself, and thank God they were cool.

Not only is my dad fun, but he’s also just a good man. Not that I would expect less from anyone my mom would fall in love with. My family borders on matriarchal. In this regard, my sisters and I have had good female examples to follow. But my dad, alone, has always shown my sisters and I what a good man is. What to expect from one, and certainly what standards to hold one to. I’ve never accepted anything less than what I deserve from a man, in part due to my dad’s example. Though I am protective of my sisters, I don’t worry for their relationships with men. My mom taught us self respect, my dad held us to it.

I’ve spent most of this letter speaking highly to my dad’s character, but I would be remiss is I didn’t admit that a large part of his impact on me has been his music taste. Though I would get an ear full if I didn’t credit my mom for this, as well. They passed down a love for classic rock, and folk music, onto me from the music they’d play at dinner, to the songs they had saved on their iPod’s. I got my grubby, little kid hands on my dad’s blue iPod one day during the summer, and remember vividly the moment I first heard Queen blasting through my headphones. Then The Cars, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin. Music that I still love to this day, and never listen to without thinking of my dad.

Happy birthday, dad. I love you.