“At sixteen, you still think you can escape from your father. You aren't listening to his voice speaking through your mouth, you don't see how your gestures already mirror his; you don't see him in the way you hold your body, in the way you sign your name. You don't hear his whisper in your blood.”
― Salman Rushdie, East, West
Today would have been my father's 90th birthday. It's not a day for sympathy, or "thoughts and prayers," or "birthday in heaven" platitudes. As memories mellow and deepen, and as they run to amber, it becomes easier and easier to see the totality of the people we've loved lost and to measure their triumphs and failures as human beings, knowing that we are also human beings with our own flaws, and to leaven those memories with that very love. He's everywhere. His portrait by the Cornish artist John Cabell hangs in the dining room. I have his Italian burled walnut valet stand in my bedroom. I wear his old Omega watch with the faded burgundy and navy grosgrain band, and it's warm on my wrist. As both a veteran journalist and a veteran diplomat, my father was well-versed in the vagaries of human nature. While there were several exceptionally cruel moments in the last fifteen months—moments when every fibre of my being ached for his wise counsel, and comfort—I already knew what he'd say about strength, integrity, decency, being true to yourself, and doing the right thing, even when that's the most uncomfortable, even painful, option. There was, and is, comfort in that. The best of him is with me always, and the rest fades away. Like Rushdie wrote, I hear his whisper in my blood.
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