Down the Rabbit Hole

Happy Birthday Dad

Today is my father's birthday so I thought it would be nice to write something in honor of him.
I've worked with my father for the better part of my life, starting from the days I teetered along behind him in the hangar, through my summers home from college and this last decade when I decided to forge my own career in aviation. It has not always been easy, balancing the personal with the working relationship, but aside from the challenges it has also afforded me to see my father in a different light and in scenarios which have given me not only a tremendous appreciation for the man, but also a very basic understanding of where some of my own behaviors, values and core beliefs come from. While my father did not raise me alone, I am very much his daughter as these things sometimes work out to be. At some point, when I abandoned my ambitions of being a marine scientist to join him in his business, I realized I was choosing a predestined path. As much as he had supported me in all my other pursuits and endeavors, it seemed the natural course that I would come to work beside him, acknowledging that smells of MEK and jet fuel and the passion for aviation are as much a part of my biological landscape as they are his - though I never gravitated to the sky as he has. I prefer to focus on honing my business skills rather then learning to fly. But this is a blog about my father, and not me. So what do I want to say about the man?

My father is the quintessential provider. I grew up in a home where my father went off to work, work that often stole entire afternoons from family vacations, made many a missed meal and left him cored and too exhausted to engage three rambling children at the end of the day. It was also the work that brought us many opportunities and afforded us a more than comfortable lifestyle, the very best he could provide. These last few years have been very difficult. I have watched him sacrifice so much to keep the company together at a time when, after a lifetime of working, he should be enjoying the fruits of all those years of labor. I would give anything to be able to see him relaxed again, motoring along the inter coastal in Florida with his wine glass and panama shirt rather than trapped in the endless meetings that leave him grim-faced and tense. But my father is also the devoted and compassionate employer, who can not think about the company he has built without seeing the many families that depend on him. He bears the responsibility for his people as sincerely and seriously as anyone I have ever met. I am immensely proud of the leader he is. He has impressed me countless times with his savvy, his salemanship, his unique ability to come through with whatever is needed, no matter how difficult the action or choice.

The other side of my father, the personal one, has been oddly more difficult for me to know. The indifference and aloofness that I so often faulted him for over the years, I have come to understand is a necessary evil. It is not that he is incapable of feeling things too deeply but rather the the undercurrent of his emotions run so strong, he must keep them at bay lest they overrun him. My father is a man who loves his children so fiercely, it may be his greatest weakness. It is only through the birth of my daughter that I have really come to understand that about him because I see that wonderful yet terrible vulnerablity mirrored in myself. I think it was my wedding day when it really hit home, when I saw how he fought to keep his emotions in check as we walked arm in arm down the aisle, then later, when he delivered a speech that brought me and my new husband to tears and left every guest with a lump in their throat. And even more recently, when he sent me a heartfelt email thanking me for giving him Jaden as a grandchild. As a grandfather, he gets to be something he never allowed himself to be as a father really. He loves both Tyler and Jaden so openly, so comfortably, so uninhibited. Last week Jaden was with me in the office. He came in and sat down, attempting to coax her from my arms. I was delighted and touched beyond words when she readily tettered into his arms and hugged him. My father's face lit up in a way I had not seen in a long time. I wondered if my daughter had even the slightest clue how much she was healing him in that moment, with just her simple hug?

I think my father would be surprised to learn that it has been the simple things that has made him wonderful in my eyes: The simple drive to be the best provider and boss he could be; the unquestioning support of my endeavors, whether in the form of care packages mailed to my college, or footing the bill for a particularly expensive trip to Australia and New Zealand when I was just 19, or bestowing his blessing on my marriage and later, on our decision to start a family of our own; and most importantly I think, his unconditional love...knowing that he will always be there for me, no matter what. Though I suspect this birthday is bittersweet for him this year, I hope he knows how much his children love and respect him. I hope he knows that this day we take the time to reflect on how much we appreciate him.