A Letter to My Dad on My First Fatherless Father’s Day
Finding a New Ritual for the Day We’ll Never Share Again
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Dear Dad,
This Sunday is my first fatherless Father’s Day, and I’ve been struggling with how to mark the occasion. Eight months have passed since your passing, and so many familiar rituals have either lost their meaning or taken on an entirely new meaning. We got through the holidays; we cried on your birthday; we called Mom on your anniversary.
But Father’s Day: What do we do now?
The truth is, I racked my brain and can’t seem to come up with a single memory of how we marked Father’s Day when we were little. I remember the collages, the jokey poems, and the mangled breakfasts we prepared for Mom. But for you? I'm afraid nothing comes to mind.
In this regard, we’re not alone.
Father’s Day has always been the forgotten offspring of Mother’s Day. I recently learned more about the history of this day, and it’s a story you would have loved. Not a day went by since I was a young when you didn’t share some newspaper or magazine article about a quirky tradition, a forgotten historical figure, or a cultural trend just bubbling beneath the surface—first slid under my door, then mailed when I went to college, later faxed, then emailed, then texted. You loved new technology so much that if you were still in your prime, you’d be a TikToker, I have no doubt.
Father’s Day, it turns out, was dreamed up a few years after Mother’s Day in 1910. The idea was the brainchild of Sonora Dodd, the daughter of a single father who raised six children in Spokane, Washington. Despite Dodd’s efforts to solicit the support of her church and YMCA, few people cared. Six years later, the New York Times reported that “Father’s Day slips past New Yorkers unobserved.”
What saved the day? The New York Associated Menswear Retailers, who decided to use the occasion to sell—you guessed it—neckties! By the 1940s, Father’s Day had become a $100 million business; by the 1960s, a billion-dollar business; and today, according to the business analytic site Statista, a twenty-billion-dollar business.
Oh boy, did you love neckties! At your funeral, I wore one you bought me from Brooks Brothers; in the days afterward, person after person shared tributes that mentioned trademark colorful ties; and we’ve been discussing plans for how to turn your collection into keepsakes.
But it wasn’t just ties that you embraced; you loved so many of the emblems of 20th century masculinity: baseball caps and billiard pipes; dress shoes and button-down shirts; three-piece suits and well-shined loafers; t-shirts and jogging shoes.
The one signature of manhood above all that I associate with you is shaving. In the beautiful memoir that you wrote over the last eight years of your life in response to emails I sent you every Monday morning, one of my favorite chapters is called “A Clean Shave:”
From the time I reached adolescence, shaving was always an important part of my life. I was fascinated by the rituals, the process, and the technology. It seemed to me you could write the story of a man’s life through the different ways he shaved.
I treasure this description of your father, made from an 80-year-old memory:
After applying the foam to his face with a badger fur brush, he twisted the bottom of the razor handle, which opened the protective cover at the top in a manner that allowed him to carefully put in place a double-edge blade from a small, cardboard package. This style of razor is called a butterfly because the two protective metal coverings open like a pair of butterfly wings.
He remained completely silent as he dragged the razor across his skin, and the shaved portions of his face were revealed once the shaving cream disappeared into a stream of hot water in the sink. The only sound was the blade slicing against his skin and removing the whiskers.
My father, his father, and my older brother, circa 1962
I’m sure you started shaving with a butterfly razor, but for as long as I can remember, you used an electric shaver. And you savored counting down the days until you could upgrade it. "My favorite shave is the first one with a new foil," you used to say.
As I began to anticipate your passing in recent years, I told myself that I would mark the occasion by doing something that I know you would have loved: I would buy myself a new electric razor. The latest model. With all the trappings. And an instruction manual that you, at least, would have read cover to cover, since your favorite expression was, When all else fails, read the instructions.
And I did buy that razor.
But for whatever reason, I haven’t been able to open the box. It’s sat on my dresser for months now, unopened.
Now I know why: I was waiting for the perfect occasion.
We’re doing okay, Dad. We all miss you. Mom says she still dreams about you and that sometimes, when she’s reading the paper, she’ll look over toward your chair to tell you something and is surprised to discover all over again that you’re not there.
I know what she means. There are so many things I want to tell you. The girls are doing great. They just finished their junior year; they got all dressed up to attend their school’s version of prom; they danced and acted beautifully in their spring shows; they have great summers planned. And the entire family will gather this August on your beloved Tybee Island. We'll come say goodbye all over again in the place you rest forever, the glorious soil of your favorite place, Savannah, Georgia.
In the meantime, I finally know what I’ll do this Sunday. I'll open the box on my dresser; I'll charge the razor I bought in your honor; and I'll give myself a clean shave.
And I’ll count myself lucky, that after all these years, I finally have a Father’s Day tradition that I can continue for the rest of my life.
Happy Father's Day, Dad. I miss you, Dad. And I love you.
Stay loose.
Bruce
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Thank you for reading The Nonlinear Life. Please help us grow the community by subscribing, sharing, and commenting below. Also, you can learn more about me, read my introductory post, watch my latest TED Talk, or scroll through my other posts. And if you'd like to do a storytelling project with a loved one similar to the one I did with my father, click here to learn more.
You might enjoy reading these posts:
What Moms Really Want for Mother’s Day
I Thought I Was Prepared for Grief. Then I Lost My Dad.
Or check out my books that inspired this newsletter: Life Is in the Transitions and The Secrets of Happy Families.
Or, you can contact me directly.
