DAD'S MUSIC BOX

“I was desperate to find a special Christmas gift for the man who had given us all so much."

It took years for my dad to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He was smart and managed to fool the practitioners and keep testing within the normal range. But eventually the disease caught up with him. It was devastating to watch him slowly disappear. 

He’d always been the one in charge. His parents had separated when he was 14, and as the oldest son still at home in a family of six children, he was assigned the role of man of the house. He took the job seriously, helping his mom with her budget and doing household repairs, and for the rest of his life he was a leader. At UC Berkeley he was elected president of his fraternity. In the late 1970s he was mayor of our hometown. At Pacific Telephone he rose through the ranks to become assistant VP.  

But what my dad really was, was a giver. If you needed advice on taxes, he was happy to help out. If you needed a loan for a new car, he was your guy. When his brother needed a kidney transplant, Dad was the ready donor. When my mother stopped drinking, he did too, to support her. After he retired, he volunteered for Habitat for Humanity full-time. And every time he came to my house, a Craftsman built in 1911, he brought his toolbox and said, “What can I fix?”

Not that he was a goody two-shoes. In fact, he had a roguish streak. As a teenager, he’d sneak out at night via the laundry chute in his closet. In college, he was a prankster (lots of naked-mannequin hijinks, some strategic relocating of a friend’s desk). When my older brother was born, Dad went AWOL from the Army to meet him. And after the annual father-daughter dinner dance at San Francisco’s Olympic Club one year, he and his buddies took us underage girls to hear jazz at Earthquake McGoon’s. Famous jazz club or no, those father-daughter dinners were my favorite thing. How I loved the way he swirled me around the dance floor.

Even as he declined, Dad remained good-natured. Grateful and gracious. And in 2020, when his dementia had progressed to the point where he hardly spoke, I was desperate to find a special Christmas gift for the man who had given us all so much. Having learned that music can be a helpful form of connection for those with dementia, I found this music box made specifically for people with memory decline. It looks like an old-time radio, but to make it play, all you have to do is lift the little lid. I loaded it with Dad’s favorite old tunes.

On Christmas night, with the fire crackling and the tree lights twinkling, I handed Dad his gift and helped him untie the ribbon. As I lifted the lid of the music box and Frank Sinatra started singing, his eyes brightened. He gave me one of his iconic smiles and started nodding to the beat. And then—and I was so shocked, I collapsed onto the couch, hand to heart—my barely verbal father started singing along. Fly me to the moon…

Dad died twenty months later. I miss him every day. But I kept the music box, and every time I lift the lid, I remember him singing. I thought I was giving him a gift. But instead, he had one for me—the last and best Christmas gift he ever gave me.

—Teri Roche Drobnick

With my dad, Robert Bruce Roche, at the Olympic Club’s father-daughter dinner dance when I was around 11, and (below) in 2021, a few months after I gave him the music box.

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Teri Roche Drobnick lives in Petaluma, California, with her husband and their dog. She writes for adults and children, and her first children’s picture book, Moving Day, will be published by Holiday House in 2025.

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