The Silent Voices of Fathers Day

My Dad is the strong silent type. He doesn’t talk much. He never did. We talked yesterday, Father’s Day, 2007. He talked quite a bit about his day. He spent the day being pampered and was served breakfast and Bloody Marys in bed. I asked him about his wife and his two new kids. He beamed a chuckling update.

We talked about last ski season and Sun Valley. That broke the ice and warmed the air even further. I’ve always been good at noodling behind his stoicism. I made him laugh about something and he asked about me. I skimmed the surface about work, recent visits by Laura, Isabel, Mason, Hugh, Scott, Anne, and Lyndsey. I told him about my tomatoes, green and hopeful on the vine.

I hear he talks more these days; paints, cuddles children, laughs, reads. I’m glad. People get softer, they open. Or they get harder, shutting. Some people remain in a range, moving tectonically, remaining “the same”. But even they are changing, slowly, receding or advancing on something. He was a lot better with me than he was with my older brothers. He was tougher on them. He learned something, opened or shut, that helped him raise me. And I needed it. Or maybe I just got lucky.

After I got off the phone with him I called my brothers; fathers. Steve was out and I got the answering machine. I left some overly gregarious exaggerated greeting and congratulations about being good father. I’m often NOT the strong silent type. At the Ketchum Grill I got the floor manager who told me Scott was too busy on the hot-line to talk. A successful chef-father creating meals for other dads.

I don’t celebrate Father’s Day, or my dad’s strong silent type. I should. It was good to hear his actual voice yesterday. I hear his silent voice plenty, even when I'm not listening. We don’t talk often, so I guess to me, he still doesn’t talk much. But I hear people change.

All good things, Wig