The Lessons I Learned from My Dad
I am not the man my father is.
I am trying. Some days closer. Some days farther.
He never sat me down and explained these lessons. He lived them. I’m still learning them.
Show up.
The kitchen table. The hospital room. The funeral. The picket line. The call from the son who won’t answer.
Show up.
Most days that’s the whole job.
My whole life I watched him do it. Not for cameras. Not for headlines. Not because there was something in it for him. He showed up because someone needed him.
I learned that grief doesn’t make you special.
My father buried a wife and daughter. He buried a son. Yet he never treated grief as a claim on other people’s sympathy. Instead, it made him notice theirs.
A mother who lost a child. A father sitting beside a hospital bed. A kid scared about what comes next. A son who lost his mother, his sister, his brother.
He always noticed.
I learned that power is not the point.
The people who chase power eventually confuse the office with themselves.
My father never did.
Whether he was a county councilman, a senator, vice president, or president, he was the same man.
The title changed.
He didn’t.
I learned that family comes first.
The train from Wilmington wasn’t symbolism.
It was every night.
He read to us. Showed up to games. Sat through hospital rooms. Waited up for children who were lost.
And when the day came that the country and the family could not both have him at full strength, he chose family. He relinquished the last chapter of how he wanted to be remembered. And he never complained about it.
Most of all, I learned that love is not soft.
Love is discipline.
Love is showing up at one in the morning when nobody is watching.
Love is answering the phone.
Love is staying.
Love is getting back up after life knocks you down and doing it all again tomorrow.
That love saved my life.
I’ve failed at many of these lessons, sometimes in very public ways.
He loved me anyway.
That’s the last lesson.
I am not trying to become my father.
I am trying to carry what he gave me.
And if I can do that, even imperfectly, that will be enough.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I love you.
@jaketapper@TimTakeMFT Not sure if you noticed, Jake, but the current president of the United States falls asleep at any given moment. Just FYI. I thought you might be interested. You used to be.
This is characteristically vile and predictably deranged, but the important thing to remember is that Trump never said anything remotely so negative or definitive about the death of his long-time best friend Jeffrey Epstein. And he wishes Ghislaine Maxwell well. Think about that.
Take Irelands name out of your mouth when you want to rationalize white supremacy. The Irish didn’t come to America to share their culture. They came fleeing destitution and starvation in their homeland, courtesy of the kind of imperial power you now fetishize. We don’t forget.
Remember when Rep.Yasmin Ansari literally slammed Virginia Fox & the Republicans for their extended vacation during the shutdown when Mike Johnson was trying to keep Adelita Grijalva from being sworn in since she was the 218th signature needed to release the Epstein files
If you’re a Democrat with any real power, this is how you do it. Jason Crow went on Fox News and didn’t posture, didn’t flinch, didn’t dodge. He brought facts on Venezuela and absolutely wrecked the host. This is how you speak. This is how you go on Fox. And this is how you ruin them.
Officers were injured defending this Capitol on January 6th.
And now eight Senators snuck in a MILLION-DOLLAR PAYOUT for themselves for being investigated for their possible involvement in the insurrection.
This video about republican farmers that had voted for trump & are now voting for Harris is big news. Seems to be getting hidden on this “free speech” site. I tried searching for it & as of now is very hard to find They also went on fox news see other post