My father passed away in 2020. It wasn’t from Covid but something else that I don’t really want to talk about right now. It was a strange, sad time in my life. But that’s not what this post is really about right now.

I have a new role in my friend group. For the most part, all of my friends still have both of their parents. We’re all in our late thirties and their parents are getting older. My sorrow, my loss makes them think about things though. Considering the future. Having to live through a fear that they don’t want to name.

So, they ask me questions. They ask me how did I know when certain things happened to my dad. How did I handle this or that. How am I feeling? How did you prepare?

They’re kindhearted people so they want to make sure that they can take care of the people that took care of them. Those are legitimate concerns. I told them about the things we did to prepare. To make sure that we would be ready.

But that’s not what they’re really asking. They’re really asking, “am I going to be okay when they’re gone?”. And I have to say yes. It’s going to be different. It’s going to be hard but you’re going to get through it.

You’re going to think about him daily. I do. You’re going to think about how I would love to talk to him about this. I would love to get his input on this or that. You’re going to get a job and wonder if he would be proud of you. You’re going to miss him at big events.

There’s unfortunately, no magic path that I can give you. There’s nothing that I can say to make the pain any less. The only path is through. But what has always worked for me was trying to live up to the standard that my father showed me.

I think the most telling moment in my mind for my father was this. He was an accountant and charged 100 dollars an hour. Let me put it simply, he deserved every dollar he got from his clients. He was exemplar. He had this older woman, living on a fixed income. She had been screwed over by a lazy accountant for the last three years. Each return took him about three hours to fix. He was so angry at the shitty work the guy before him had done.

Finally came the day when he called her over. He had gotten her back somewhere in the thousands in her refund. I thought that nine hours of work would at least give him a good paycheck to make up for the headache that he had been put through while working on them. I was eating dinner while they were talking at the dining room table. He was explaining how much money she was getting back and she was so excited. I waited for the hammer to fall.

He charged her fifty bucks.

When she was gone, I walked into the dining room to talk to him. I asked him why he only charged her fifty bucks. He took off his glasses, which was always a signal that he wanted to talk to me seriously and said:

“Rollo, she’s a woman alone, living off the state. Some things are more important than money.”

That alone has made me try and be fair and kind in all my dealings. He was a good man.

The one thing that I know that I don’t have to worry about and I prepared for this, was to make sure that the last thing I said to my father was “I love you”. I always knew that my parents were older and that made me want to make sure I spent more time with them. Because I knew that this day was going to come and a far harder day is coming down the line. When I will fully be an orphan. I hate thinking about that day. But it makes me be, hopefully, a better son. To make sure my mom knows I care about her.

Fortunately, my mom had my dad make videos for my sister and I of him wishing us a happy birthday. I have a video of my father telling me happy birthday and that he loves me. I’m so lucky for that. I know that it’s something that other people don’t have. To be able to hear their father’s voice.

And if you’re a parent reading this, then that’s my advice for you. To make sure that there are physical things that your children can have and hold or hear of your love. Make them videos, audio recordings or whatever so that they can hear your voice in times of trouble. That they’ll never forget what it sounds like when you say you love them.