Answering the Question: Thanks Dad

The lesson came from the context, not the content. PLUS a very special poem about softness.

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Happy Summer! It seems like the return of the season has brought a slightly early end to Los Angeles’ June Gloom, and I’m happy to say I’m writing to you from my porch today getting some much needed Vitamin S(unshine).

A forewarning that this week’s prompt response deals with my father, so if you’re worried it might trigger some thoughts about your own father you’re not ready to deal with right now, you may want to skip this one.

What’s a lesson you learned from your father figure?

Answering the Question: Feel the Feels

Thinking about the lessons my father figure, that would be my dad, taught me was difficult, and there are a lot of reasons for that.

For those of you who don’t know, my father died in August 2020 (unrelated to COVID), so this marks the third Father’s Day that had passed without him around. Part of the reason I opted to make this our reflection for the week is because I realized I didn’t do much to bring the subject of him to my mind. Other than a text from my mother, the day passed for me without doing much to mark or remember him. It was just another Sunday.

Now, say what you will…Father’s Day is a Hallmark Holiday, that one day doesn’t matter as much as the thoughts I’ll have over the course of my lifetime, that we all remember differently…and that’s all true. But I felt it was important for me to take a moment to sit with him and reflect.

And it definitely made a difference. For the first time in a long time, I had a dream about him. It has been at least six months since I last did that. I’m convinced it happened because journaling forced him to the top of my mind. See, what happens on the page does have an impact!

(The dream itself needs some translating. I was living in my college dorm with a termite infestation and he was visiting me to help. If you have any idea how to interpret that, then LMK).

When confronting the question of his teachings though, I found myself looking at a blank page more often than not. That’s not to say there weren’t lessons imparted, but that it was harder for me to go deeper than the broad platitudes that have launched the careers of dozens of thought leaders. Be generous. Keep clean. Take care of your belongings. Say thank you.

All well and good, but nothing that I can say my father definitively taught me that hadn’t, also, been imparted by my mother, my community, or the world at large. I pushed myself to keep grappling with the question, even when I couldn’t find a way to put words on the page. Eventually, half-formed lessons and values did reveal themselves, but when I remembered them they also brought to mind the harshness with which he tried to instill them, the way a lesson that day would have dissonance with the lesson from last week. The frustration he would show at my inability to comply with his teaching with his anger, with his tears, with his pain…and the subsequent joy and pride he expressed when something might eventually click.

Anger. Tears. Joy. Pride.

A fairly rich spectrum of emotions, of feelings.

Then it revealed itself to me. The lesson was not the message, but the messenger. Or, to put my marketer hat on, the context was king, not the content.

Despite his hardness, my father was modeling the richness and fullness of human emotions. His feelings were never obfuscated or hidden. If he was proud of me, he told me with effusive language, not grunts. If he was upset, he cried in front of me. If he loved someone, he was never afraid to let them know and give them a hug. Whether or not I would now read that as a performative act rather than a genuine one, as a child I didn’t know the difference. Simply, I saw my father sharing and expressing love.

For all his flaws, my dad never denied me the benefit of having a father who offered his whole heart, and modeled for me something more men could benefit by seeing: that men can feel, and express, it all.

There’s no stigma for me around tears. No need to turn an “I love you” into an “I love ya” when talking to a male friend. I’ve never considered it quirky or strange to embrace friends in a big bear hug. Of course, I’m still getting better at how I express all this. Knowing and doing are two very different things. But I have immense gratitude for how fortunate am I to start from a position of acceptance and improvement than one of prejudice and stigma. That’s because I saw them all before me when I was a kid.

Drop a Line

If you ever want to share something that one of our questions has brought up for you, just drop me an email or a DM with your story.

And always feel free to hop in the comments below. I’d love to hear from all of you on the lessons your father figures taught you!

Something for the Weekend

This piece from

Nelly Bryce

hit my inbox this week and I couldn’t imagine a more appropriate poem to share alongside the email.

The topic of softness has been top of mind for me lately, from seeing it mentioned in the dedication of Sara Elise’s book to my own conversations with friends.

I can add nothing to Nelly’s beautiful words and sentiment, so please read them for yourself. An excerpt is published below, and please click over to her Substack to read the poem in its entirety (and subscribe to her newsletter).

Let him know softness. Warmth, closeness, I mean. Let him long for lazy Sundays. Let him know fleecy blankets and special cushions, whipped pink frosting on cupcakes and crying at the end of a great book. Let him love the smell of clean washing and the feel of slipper socks. 

As well as cricket bats and computer games, let him love cartwheels on the grass and collecting conkers to make art. Let him cradle a doll under his arm and guard the path to protect a ladybird. Let him hold a hand and say no to the joke that might lead to harm. When the world offers him the darks of grey and blue let him know that he can drench himself in pinks and lilacs and yellows.

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See you Sunday!

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