FATHER'S DAY WITHOUT MY DAD

Imagine you bought the best cake in the world. You bring it home, you open the box, and a slice is missing. It’s still the best cake you’ve ever tasted. But there’s a piece that isn’t there, and you can’t stop noticing the empty space where it should be.

That’s what fatherhood feels like for me.

My dad died on April 25, 2020. Zeke was eight months old, and my daughter Judi wasn’t born yet. I became a father and lost my father in the same year, and I have been figuring out what that means ever since.

I never had a single Father’s Day as a dad with a dad. Not one. I think about what it would have looked like — probably nothing extraordinary. Probably just together. He would have been insufferably proud. Of me, of the kids, of all of it. Instead, every Father’s Day I get to be celebrated while quietly missing the person I want to celebrate. Both things happen at the same time. You learn to hold them together.

What nobody tells you about parenting without your own parent is how often you reach for the phone. Not for anything urgent. Just to say: Zeke did this thing today. You would have loved it. There’s a specific silence where that call would have been, and you feel it most on the days that are supposed to be the good ones.

My dad was a time and talent guy. He showed up. He said yes. He shoveled the neighbor’s walk, went to Ground Zero as a volunteer EMT, played invisible ping pong with my brother in a Houston airport after midnight because we were stranded and there was nothing else to do. He was interested in whoever was in front of him. He helped people without keeping score.

I catch myself doing his moves without planning to. Saying yes when it would be easier to say no. Showing up to the things that don’t require me to be there. Being interested in whatever Zeke is into, whether or not I actually am.

It’s the closest thing I have to a parenting philosophy, and I inherited it without a conversation.

I have a photo of my dad and Zeke rolling around on his bed together. Zeke is laughing. My dad looks like a man with everything he needs. They had eight months. That’s all they got.

Judi never got any of it. She was born into a world where Papa is already a story I tell. But she does this thing where she sits in my lap and reaches for my necklace — a gold Chai that was my dad’s. I know it was his, and every time she grabs it I feel something I don’t have a word for.

The cake is still the best cake. Watching my kids grow up is extraordinary. Being their dad is the thing I’m most proud of. On the good days — the really good ones — there’s still a piece missing. There always will be.

I just keep bringing home the cake.