Son Jeff, Dad, Mom, Son Jeremy

My father has been gone for many years, but I still hear his voice almost every day.

“Speed, Accuracy, and Results.”
“Do what you’re told, when you’re told, as you’re told. If you know a better way, tell it to me. If not, do it my way.”
“What’s wrong, why is it wrong, and what are you doing to do about it?”
And my favorite: “Once I thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken.”

In LIFETIME, I write a great deal about my mother and very little about my father. But after Nonna, no one influenced my life more than my father.

He was the person I called when I was in trouble, even well into adulthood. He was always ready with advice. The truth is, he was almost always right.

We sang together – the songs of his youth: “On the Big Rock Candy Mountain,” “You Are My Sunshine,” “Smile Awhile,” and dozens of others. Today, I sing them with my sons and grandchildren, and somehow Dad lives on.

My sons adored him. They often say, “Granddad earned the right to tell us what to do. He could talk the talk because he walked the walk.”

Born into abject poverty, he never forgot where he came from. He worked relentlessly, built an international business, and created opportunities for his children and grandchildren that he himself never had.

What I regret is that I didn’t ask more questions. I wish I had asked him more about his family. He adored his older brother Fred, yet I know only fragments of those stories. He was a Marine in the First Landing Battalion on Guadalcanal. What happened there? How did he build such a successful company? Why did he love all things Italian?

Family history is often preserved in conversation. And conversations have an expiration date. When our loved ones pass away, they take their library of life with them.

That realization is one of the reasons I pressed my mother for answers during the final years of her life. I knew the opportunity would not last forever. Time ends. Lives pass. Stories disappear. And sometimes all we’re left with are questions.

What about you? Is there someone you wish you had asked more questions? And if there is someone still living whose story matters to you, don’t wait.