I’m grateful to my dad for teaching me to live boldly and authentically
Fathers never get the shine they should, and Father’s Day celebrations almost always pale in comparison to those for Mother’s Day. I have to admit, though I know how blessed I am to still have my father, I’m guilty of playing into this too.
But when I sit back and think on it, I realize that many of my memories of my father, André, have something in common. He taught me about courage and the great things that can happen when I bet on myself.
When I was 8, my father showed me how to ride a bike. He hovered over me as I learned to balance without training wheels on our little street in Miami.
To ensure my safety when I took public transit from my high school downtown to my dance studio for the first time, my father surreptitiously followed me in his car the entire way, only making his presence known as I walked to my studio. He rolled down his window as I grew suspicious of a gray car that kept inching closer. The memory still makes me laugh. I also smile when I think of the fact that he didn’t tell me he was going to follow me and he didn’t make me feel like I couldn’t do it without him.
My father also showed his willingness to let me decide what to do when he drove me to my audition for the American Musical and Dramatic Academy conservatory, hours after I’d just gotten off the bus from Grad Bash, a senior celebration at Universal Studios. He left up to me the choice of whether to dance after a mostly sleepless night or go home and rest. He didn’t inject a word of doubt when I decided to audition. The adjudicator told me that my technique made her day, and I received an acceptance letter weeks later. I didn’t end up attending AMDA, but my dad’s belief in me gave me the last nudge I needed.
My father is a huge proponent of doing things just to be good at them. A civil engineer and gifted writer, he never seems to run out of ways I can test myself and take chances.
I’d roll my eyes as a teen when my father would suggest something he thought I should try just to be good at it. That’s what teenagers do, and I thought the implication was that I wasn’t doing enough. I now realize that my father was trying to impart the lesson was that nothing was impossible, out of my reach or unlearnable. It was partly that optimism that motivated me to spend my last $20 on ballet shoes to attend an audition shortly after I graduated from college. That audition led to my first apprentice contract, which kickstarted my dance career.
It was watching his drive to finish his Master of Business Administration that made me feel like I could go to graduate school and succeed, even as I juggled other responsibilities. And it was his urging that I should “just do it” that made me apply after the application deadline for my dream program at Northwestern University was extended.
Most times, when I throw my hat in the ring for something that seems impossible, it’s on the advice of my father — even if he doesn’t know it.
My mother nurtured, disciplined and gave me structure. She encouraged my dreams in her own way and gave me the space to try new things. But my father was and remains the person who pushed me to go for everything, even the things that seemed most out of reach.
In a recent graduate seminar, my pitching professor encouraged us to speak in first drafts. I took that to mean not only saying things in the most authentic way possible but also things as we feel them. I believe my father’s encouragement then and now is to live in first drafts. To do what feels true and to take risks just to see what happens — because the end result may turn out better than we think.
And as I try to write my life story as the greatest first draft anyone has ever read, I realize that my father’s encouragement is also built around his definition of success — one I constantly cite time and time again.
“When you’ve tried your best, to do your best, and you have peace of spirit, then you have success.”
I see the peace in his spirit as he makes a joke, helps a stranger or tells me for the millionth time that the thing I’m worried about is really, sincerely, not as big a problem as I’m making it out to be. Even if I’m still figuring out how to live in it daily, I know my worth, my potential and the true validity of my dreams because of my father.
Thanks, Dad. Happy Father’s Day.