Time for Dad’s Day Cards!

MAY 29, 2019 – Personality size aside, we hope you were blessed with a big-hearted father. :) Looking toward Father’s Day a few weeks from now, I thought I’d share a fun story about my dad, and invite you to reply with one of your own. Touching, silly or bittersweet, we’ll plan to share a few Cardies’ stories on Father’s Day. To get the ball rolling, here’s a favorite Dad memory of mine:

On my 36th birthday, it occurred to me that my dad had been exactly my age the day I was born. Seeing how he was scraping along and enduring sadly-deteriorating health, I took a good, long look at how I planned to make the most of the rest of my life. In the months following, I moved at my usual brisk clip and (1) determined that, whatever it held, my future was in Italy and (2) proceeded to sell my hard-earned public relations firm in order to make the move.

I was on a roll, busily giving away my furniture, dishes and do-dads when I got the call from my retired Midwest farmer father. Curled up looking out over Lake Michigan at home in Chicago, I could imagine Dad nestled in his big blue recliner in south Florida, with some sports commentator for company. He asked (for the 93rd time), didn’t I think I should think about this move as he had and realize I’d “never have another opportunity” like the one I was leaving. “Dad!” I said with patience for this repeated conversation waning. “I created this opportunity, and see new ones all day, every day.” I could picture the earnest look on his wrinkly, tanned face as he tried, “Well you were awfully lucky to have done as good as you have.”

“Now look, you old fart,” I teased in a tone only his mouthy oldest daughter could get away with. “You’ve pushed me too far. When are you going to realize you have not raised a lucky daughter, but a bright and resourceful one?! It was not just luck, it was brains and ingenuity, hard work and determination that brought me to where l am, and I’ll do fine wherever I go. Please stop worrying, Dad.”

“Well then,” he conceded, and we both ceased fire. “I have a new job for you over there.” Then my dad pronounced, “You can be the Vanna White of Italy!”

“Excuse me?”

“The Vanna White of Italy. All this week is ‘Around the World with Wheel of Fortune.’ Tonight they had Denmark on, but Tuesday they showed Italy. I listened to them people and thought, ‘How in the hell is she going to learn to talk like that?!?’ Vanna doesn’t have to talk. She just has to look nice and turn letters. You can do that!”

I was dumbstruck for a good 30 seconds. Then we both shared a laugh that Bud had at last found a way to slow down his fast-talking daughter. The bossy big sister of his three little girls, the one who won high school speech contests and was made spokesperson for her university’s Student Government. Whose gift for glib built a PR career that would now afford her the opportunity to explore living in another country. That chatterbox and her father both chuckled before agreeing that, if ever there was a skill she could learn, it was talking!

In the years since, as I’ve retold the story to childhood friends who always loved the astonishing comments that came from my father, the exchange has touched me more and more. I came to truly appreciate Dad’s concern for my well-being. By hearing his grudging admiration for my confidence and daring, I felt freer to admit a bit of fear of my own. And I became able to fully receive the love of a man whose painful, skinny old legs barely got him from his bed to the bathroom, so would never make the splendid hike from Portofino to San Fruttuoso. Mostly, I came to value the kind of love that prompts aging parents to keep trying to keep up with their as-yet more vigorous offspring. To stay connected as best they can, even if the only connection they see is via Vanna.

Dad was sure on my mind during that long, solo trip to Italy when I was so intent on making a move that was not meant to be. Because I hadn’t yet learned to “talk like that,” I felt more isolated and alone than I would have thought possible. And while my lonesomeness came from being far from all that I loved back home, it struck me that one can feel the same way spending all day every day alone in a big blue recliner in the Sunshine State.

I soon returned to the States and created Cardthartic, but did learn to talk a little Italian along the way. :) The first phrase I committed to memory was, “Tu sei molto caro,” which I happily shared with Dad means, “You are very dear.”