I’ve never called my dad “father” and I’m pretty sure I became aware of how father could be used in a conversation via The Empire Strikes Back. “Conversation” in that context held very loosely. But I suppose “Dad’s Day” doesn’t have the same gravitas. And Pater*, the Latin origin of Father, never really caught on. There was never a Happy Pater’s Day! card at the Hallmark in Westerville, Ohio. Or never one that I found, at least.
So: Father’s Day. This week’s reflection, post, share, story is a tribute to two fathers.
Paters.
Dads.
Dolphus Eugene Henry III
He’s been Mr. Henry, Dr. Henry, Uncle Dolph, Dee. To me—and only me—Dad. Much like how Pater never really caught on, Dolphus is a name most people in the United States have not heard, and I didn’t know that. Dolphus was my dad’s (and He-Man’s!) name, so it was a name as familiar as Steve was to everyone else. But, even before there was caller ID when we’d just answer the phone with Devil-may-care abandon, I knew a telemarketer:
“Is Henry Dolphus available?”
Wouldn’t you know it, Henry Dolphus was never available.
Well, he was never available to them. My dad was always available to me.
He was, as an example, a constant presence at every high school play I was a part. And not just at every performance, but at every dress rehearsal, making sure students and parents had near-professional shots of the show. It was a thing I thought was pretty cool as an insecure teenager, when having good pictures versus bad pictures was of paramount importance. But it wasn’t until about ten years into my own professional career when I realized how-freaking-remarkable my dad’s attendance was. High school dress rehearsals start around 3 o’clock. My dad had a job, a career. He had a significant job and career. That was something I was kind of aware of, mostly because the furniture in his office seemed to be very well-made and very heavy. What I knew for sure: no matter the semester—or the quality of the show—he was there at 3 o’clock. For at least three hours. Every single performance.
[We now lament that we can’t find five minutes to pee between Zooms. Something is amiss.]
My dad models presence, intentionality, and conviction. And of the many lessons that I attribute to him, it’s a phase that may be a chapter of my book someday, if not the title:
Work the Plan.
While the words really stuck in college, they were present long before. Starting around the third grade when letters and sentences were introduced to numbers, I struggled with all things math. I never asked for the Math × English collab that started when I was eight. But my dad was always able to frame each math problem as just a thing to get around, over, and through. Don’t avoid it or skip it. Decide something needs to be done, define what needs to be done, and then do it. And then move on.
Work the plan.
It’s a brilliant, simple statement. First, it presumes some level of self-reflection. You’ve identified there is something to be done. For me, that may be the most profound part. As my mom recently reflected: I was never really afraid of making a decision (meaning, I’ve never let life just happen to me without taking some kind of active part in the happening). The reason: work the plan. I always knew I could make another decision. And then another one. Sometimes it took a day and sometimes years, but I could get to a point of deciding: something has to be done. It’s the first step of work the plan.
Plan: that’s the horizon, the future. The commitment to the belief that there is a path. Maybe it’s not forward, maybe it’s sideways, could be backwards for a bit. But there’s a path. While my dad was excellent at actually creating a plan, I’ll admit that the action of planning didn’t stick as much as the idea that every action could be in service of a new path. That word plan made me kind of ok with what others have called risk. I’ve made a lot of decisions that didn’t necessarily have a super well-thought-out, published plan. Taking jobs, moving to cities. Traveling to new countries. Launching what is essentially a personal blog to an as-yet-to-be-identified professional destination.
Finally: work. To quote my Brittney Spears (not my dad, to be clear): “…you better work.” Self-explanatory. No matter how much help and support you get (and I very gratefully get a lot of help and support), it’s up to you to get yourself up, out, and around. You.
Fellow princesses, that means we aren’t waiting for someone to give us slippers. Drive yourself to the store and buy your own damn boots.
It’s because of my dad that I’ve always been equipped to get myself out of periods of self-pity, wallow, and woah-is-me. Work.
I’ve been in a number of situations that called for working the plan. Decisions I made that definitely warranted…another decision. Relationships. Jobs. Apartments. Schools. Years after third-grade math, it was my first year of college when the phrase really stuck. I had chosen to move to Tallahassee, Florida, showed up for move-in day, and watched (and felt!) a palmetto bug* crawl across my flip-flopped foot. A new decision had to be made. It was another muggy, buggy nine months until my ego took a nap and I found the words “I don’t want to go back to Florida.” “Work the plan” was in my head all nine of those months. I always knew it was up to me and in me to make a new decision and take action.
Before I close this wholly incomplete tribute to my dad…my parents now travel the world, exploring. He’s still photographing dramatic things, just now cosmic light shows in Iceland and lions posing in South Africa. He’s still present. Still intentional. Still available to me. And I’ll always remember to work the plan.
*Thanks to my dad, I knew that Latin word Pater at a young age. It was much like how he taught me esophagus as an interstitial between “head, shoulders” and “knees and toes.” Perhaps both are the origin story of my love of words and how intentionally funny they can be. Except when they’re in math.
**Palmetto Bug: the Southeastern US term for cockroach likely pushed by The Florida Travel and Tourism Board. Like in math, just another example of words being used against me. Fool me once, palmetto bug. I’ll take the Midwest cicada any day.
John Philip Thrasher Sr.
My husband’s father - his dad - passed away in December, right before Christmas. In a few short months, he confronted cancer with a profound, resolute dignity. While this reflection is not about his passing, the last few months of his life were, as expected, reflective of his life.
I knew John - or Senior, as our friends Bryan and Amie and perhaps others call him - for ten years, almost exactly. My image of our first meeting is that of him standing in the entrance way of their Sierra Madre home, framed by the warm light of their Spanish-architecture kitchen. He was wearing a Reyn Spooner button down, one hand on top of their English Cream Golden Retriever Marley, the other outstretched in a welcome. And after many pictures from the last decade - our wedding, trips to wine country, holidays and Mijari’s - that first meeting will be the image always with me. Back in November of 2014, John Sr. of course already knew about me from his son. We’d been dating almost five months, five hours away, up in Northern California. But even before he met me, I have to think that as a loyal Michigan State University alumnus, he was likely amused (or bemused) that in the middle of San Francisco, his son had somehow met a girl who was working for…the University of Michigan.
John Sr. was a fierce businessperson. And actually, when I think of even that term - businessperson - I think: John Sr. I would’ve liked to have known him earlier in his career; I’m glad to have never been across the bargaining table from him. He loved negotiations, debates, deals, took risks and made moves. He was deeply curious about commerce well after he spent his days in “business” - whether that be in an office, or in the UCLA classroom where he taught. In the last few years, when I started facilitating leadership conferences and conversations, he would always ask about the topics. Interested in knowing what executives were thinking about, talking about. Those themes shifted from pandemic protocols to political implications, and he was a student of it all. In what would be our final in-person conversation last November, he was as intrigued by AI as much as he was worried about it. Concerned about what we generously bucket under “geopolitical” events. John Sr. had opinions and leanings, as we all do.
In more than seven decades of life, he also had a remarkable portfolio of people and stories, from Boston conference rooms to Hollywood sets. He once rescued Suzanne Pleshette’s hat from a windy Beverly Hills sidewalk and at a fundraiser gala - also in Beverly Hills - he danced with Lynda Carter.
Lynda. Carter.
He was somehow able to slyly reference that anecdote quite often, delighting, with a glint in his eye, how I was both in awe and envious. Anytime he’d come across a picture or video of a French Bulldog, he sent it to me. One such send was a link to a custom made Frenchie motorcycle jacket. He and I had a very short but pragmatic conversation about whether or not I should purchase it. I ultimately did not, though it’s saved simply as a core memory in my Instagram messages, where it will live as long as Instagram lets me keep it.
John Sr. loved The Temptations, his home state of Michigan, and the Los Angeles Kings. He loved the Jesse Stone series, a west-facing seat at Shutters on the Beach, and fantasy hockey.
Most of all: he loved his family.
It was always family first. He was fiercely loyal, protective, and proud of his wife, daughter, and son. You could see it when he told a story, or when he listened to theirs.
At his dad’s memorial service in February, John stood with his family at the entrance of the church. “I’m not good at this,” he said. “No one is, and no one expects you to be,” I responded. He shook hands with his dad’s friends, colleagues, partners. Those who skied with him, worked with him, and met him for coffee weekly during his term as (what we lovingly called) the Mayor of Beantown. As each person extended their hand and looked up at John, many caught their breath and took an almost involuntary step back to take in what they saw.
“Wow. You look just like your dad.”
He does. And it’s just one of many beautiful legacies John carries, honoring his dad - John Philip Thrasher Sr., every day.
These are our fathers. Our dads: John’s and mine. They shaped us. Cheered for us. Instilled ethics, phrases, memories. And they still do—wherever they may be.
To all of the dads - Dolphus, John, Anakin, Steve…even Henry:
Happy Pater’s Day.
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