DAD'S CLICKER

“My dad used the clicker to keep track of balls and strikes and outs. I use it to keep him near.”

My dad was the director of Parks & Recreation in a Connecticut town for over 40 years, and when he wasn’t working that job, he still worked a lot, officiating softball and basketball and soccer games. When I was young, Dad’s fixation on work made it feel like he preferred being on fields and courts to being with his family. I didn’t understand that all the late nights and weekends he spent umping and reffing helped make it financially possible for our mom to stay at home with my brothers and me.

There was a lot about my dad I didn’t understand. Like why he thought saltines and ginger ale were the cure for everything. (Sore throat: “Did you try saltines and ginger ale?” Broken finger: “Saltines and ginger ale?”) Or why he drank hot tea from a regular mug instead of a travel mug and then got frustrated when it spilled in the car, making the cup holder sticky in whatever beater he was driving until it broke down. Or why he drove such beaters in the first place. Or why he always sat alone at games, away from the other parents. Or why he never seemed to praise my brothers and me. Or why he was so silent. 

But as I grew up it started to click—well, maybe not the saltines and ginger ale or the tea, but all the rest. Click: He drove beater cars because that’s what he could afford. Click: He sat alone at games so he could enjoy them in peace, away from parents who “coached” from the sidelines and hassled the actual coaches. Click: I found out that if he wasn’t praising us kids to our faces, he was praising us to everyone else. Click: There was strength in his silence. I came to see that my dad lived as he umpired, watching and listening closely, paying attention to every moment, every move, using his best judgment to do what he believed to be right.

In my mid-twenties, I wrote Dad a letter telling him I understood him. Here’s an example of how well he understood me: Two months before my wedding, I got in a fight with my soon-to-be-husband. Freaked out, I went to my parents’; they weren’t there, so I started shooting hoops. When my dad got home, he started getting my rebounds for me, playing in silence till I was ready to talk. He listened to my story. Asked a few questions. Didn’t badmouth anyone or say anything that couldn’t be taken back. He knew I was going home to my fiancé that night and would remember anything negative he’d said. He was so smart that way.

He died suddenly, likely of a stroke or something cardiac, the night before I was scheduled to have a minor surgery. He’d been planning to be there with me, no doubt with saltines and a ginger ale. When we talked on the phone that night, I could hear something in his voice, a tiredness, and I thought, I have to go see him now. But I told myself I was just projecting my surgery fears. It is one of my biggest regrets. Instead of going to see my dad, I went to bed and was woken just after midnight by my mom and one of my brothers ringing my doorbell to tell me he was gone.

Hours later I walked into my childhood home thinking, He’s here, right? The crumbs from his morning English muffin were right there. His umpire clicker was on the cluttered shelf above the kitchen sink. We’d already had to make so many impossible decisions—where should his body be taken? who should be called, and when?—but the decision to slip the clicker into my purse was instant and easy and clear. It’s lived in my purse ever since, going wherever I go, always close at hand.

My dad used the clicker to keep track of balls and strikes and outs. I use it to keep him near. When I’m rummaging through my bag and come across it, I say hello and give it a click. And when I need to calm myself or center myself or regain my composure, it’s the thing I reach for: Click click click, hello, and you’re right there with me, Dad, reminding me to have patience, weather the storm, listen more than I speak. It’s been five years, and I wish I was learning these lessons with you here, but for now I click.

—Kate T.

My dad’s speech on my wedding day was about loyalty to family. In the moment I didn’t quite get it, but like everything else about Dad, it eventually clicked.

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