Brevity is Beautiful

I spoke with my Dad last night.  We haven’t talked in a few weeks and throughout the day I had noticed a sense of appreciation for him, bubbling inside me.

I started remembering different places in my life where he had a profound effect on me.

For me, I am my own person and I clearly could have made many things in life far easier for me if I would have listened rather than rebelled. We all have to find our own paths.  But I digress.

There was a time when I was 7 and he used to take business calls at home in the morning.  At that age, his voice thundered with energy and he sounded so crisp, I knew I wanted to be like him.

As I hit my teenage years and my awareness emerging logic surfaced, I became clear about how I didn’t want to be like him.

A couple of decades later, I finally put it all together in a useful way and wouldn’t you know it was his influence that put me on the path of my ultimate career.  I was doing nothing like he had done and yet he had shown me this particular track of thinking to pursue.

There are times when we played, fought, banged heads, disagreed, took positions, debated, explored and more … At times I did my best to alienate him and he still reengaged later on.

We had hundreds (if not thousands) of interactions and he has seen me at my absolute worst and best.

Having the desire to communicate the sum total of all this appreciation, I called him last night.  I said, I want to tell you something but it requires that you be very present and undistracted.

He said, “I’ll do my best”.

I said “ok, here it comes”.   Very small dramatic pause …

“Thank You”.

Stunned silence.  Then he says, “for what”?

I told him that there were way too many things to itemize in my appreciation, but that the fullness of all those things could only best be expressed with “Thank You”.

I know he didn’t do what he has done for the thanks.  At the same time, it is hard to ignore great contribution.  I am certain that my
thank you” woefully understates the things I associate it with, but this is what I told him and I was surprised that those two words were really the essence of the thought.

He ended the call by saying that “Brevity is Beautiful”.

I responded by saying I agreed, because the undertow of meaning is present with the brief expression.  I feel fortunate that I had the chance to express it to him, even if I couldn’t convey the full depth of feelings.

Merry Christmas all