My Dad Would Have Been 82

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Yesterday

In 1982, my father of blessed memory died. If he had lived until yesterday, he would have been 82. Yesterday, I spent the day, writing a paper for school, on Mediation.

In the afternoon, I took a break to look at e-mail and saw a notification that I had received a comment on my beehive profile (IBM's answer to Facebook, and internal for IBMers) from the father of a summer intern.

The intern's father works for IBM as well. I did not know him prior to this summer; he works in Sales in New York City.

The other day, I had written on the profile of the intern's father, and then when he responded, I replied, "Today would have been my dad's birthday -- may his memory be blessed. I'm glad to hear from another father on this day. You must be proud of [your daughter]; we're happy to have her on our team for the summer and I hope she chooses IBM upon her graduation."

Her father wrote, "...I am sure that your father if alive would be very proud of you. I am, too, very proud of [my daughter] and she can't say enough how much she has enjoyed IBM and the people she is associated with, thanks for making it special for her!"

I'm so envious of the intern. My dad never even got to see me graduate from high school. It was kind of him to write about my dad's likely pride in me in any case.

"Mad Men" Again

The show is nearly back, but I had missed the first four episodes, and so we're watching them now, pre-season. We just watched Episode #3. Tonight, I told Pat that 1960, the year when the show takes place, seems so familiar to me, even though I wasn't born till 1965. "Maybe I was just experiencing it as part of my parents, inside my father."

The show conjures my earliest memories. I remember my father, using the same sort of movie camera that the main character uses. Our kitchen curtains were the same concept as the main characters' kitchen's. My father dressed smartly, like the men dressed, and my mother went to Girardo's in Pound Ridge every week, where he made her hair flip at the bottom.

For what additional achievements and kindnesses would I have been proud of my dad, if he had made it to yesterday? Maybe he would have invented several more games and toys (he was a professional toy-maker/game designer); maybe he would have done hagbah on High Holidays for the synagogue we went to in my childhood; maybe we could have gone rollerskating together a few more times; maybe he would have liked Pat and welcomed her into our family; maybe he would have been pleasantly surprised by my career and by the way I grew into an adult....