I was never much for what I think of as “fake” holidays, but my wife has helped me understand their importance. I take them more seriously now, seriously enough that I remembered that today was Father’s Day. My day started out the way I like it—up early hiking in the woods. We had breakfast afterwards with my father-in-law, and my girls gave me cards that predictably made me cry.
This evening we went over to my dad’s house for Father’s Day dinner. Dad’s just over 100 but can really pack it away. After dinner I walked back into the den where he an my mom have their desks. My dad keeps careful notes—he writes down every date and appointment since his recall isn’t that good anymore; he keeps records of his medications and their schedules; and he has a “face sheet” to remind him who everyone is and how they’re related.
My mom’s desk is different. It has a set of tiny plastic drawers filled with beads for her artwork. There are old travel diaries, notebooks of meticulous plans for weavings and bead creations, family pictures, and tech—lots of tech.
My parents—especially my mom—adopted computer technology very early. In the 70s they took coding classes at our community college. They bought the first Apple home computer and found things for it to do. My mom wrote a program to help her design weavings. My dad wrote one to track the pieces he played in his weekly string quartet. I found some of the early text-based games, and me and my mom learned how to use the first word processors, the ones that weren’t “what you see is what you get”. For example, a capital letter might look like all the other letters but have a box around it to indicate it was a capital. It was not at all intuitive.
As I remember it, the early 80s word processor output was more like HTML code than a modern WYSIWYG interface
Mom had little trouble with new tech, and as each “juicy” new toy was released, she jumped in feet first. She updated her computers when she felt like it, loved her iPhone, and had no problem with texting and email (or at least did much better than other folks born in 1933!).
Tonight, her desk is frozen in time. There’s an Apple mouse with an old-style adapter, several USB-A cables, and basically every kind of now-obsolete cord you can imagine. She has pictures of her grandchildren, but all of them stop in 2024, the year she died.
Mom’s desk is an artifact, a time-capsule of a life filled with joy. It’s a time capsule of an adventurous, thoroughly-modern woman—creative, progressive, and unafraid of all that is new.
I know that I’m lucky to still have my Dad around, and I’m thankful to have been able to spend Father’s Day with him. I hope to get old(er) some day, and I wonder what my girls will think, what they’ll remember. Which memories are the ones that bring smiles or tears?
So, yeah, I take Father’s Day a lot more seriously now (thank you, Julie!), not just for me and my dad, but also for my kids. I’ll try to take this lesson to heart, and celebrate every “fake” holiday with a full heart. There’s nothing fake about that.
