All my friends’ fathers are dying

They all had awesome mid-century names like Terry and Mike and Joe and Kenny. Terry let us borrow his Lexus one night after we covered a fight card at The Orbit Room and our car wouldn’t start. Mike took us to air shows when we were little. Kenny let us sit around in the garage and watch him wrench on whatever amazing vehicle he was wrenching on. He also let us take all the tiny Chiclet boxes from the candy dish in his office. Joe was my favorite teacher of all time.

I’m 46 and as such all my friends’ dads are in their 70s or 80s. Many of them are dying. These men all worked hard at mostly anonymous and unglamorous jobs. If they complained, I rarely heard it. They kept marriages together (no small thing) and raised good kids who are now raising their own good kids. Some of them knew the Lord and some of them I’m not sure.

None of these men had social media personas. Zero of them were “influencers.” They had no online beefs with anyone, because they enjoyed working on cars or listening to records or hitting the heavy bag in their garage or whatever it is they did that is for sure better than the thing I’m doing. I don’t recall any of them ever sitting around and bloviating about their “legacy” or even about “character,” as is de rigueur in today’s Christian Man circles.

Terry once let us ransack an office building he was closing because we were dumb young hipsters who were in search of old offices supplies—which supplies we liked because of their status as ironic. Gosh we were insufferable (“look at this amazing briefcase!”), but Terry was really nice about it. One time Joe called my house on NFL Draft night, posing as an emissary of the Indianapolis Colts, and indicating that I had been drafted in the 12th round. He was funny like that. It was also his idea that I become a writer.

Mike appreciated the fact that I was a football player. And I appreciated that he appreciated it. He never said a whole lot, but this was cool.

Whenever I get these calls—whether I’m in the car, or in this morning’s case, in my “sitting and having coffee with my wife” chair which is adjacent to her identical chair—I involuntarily start crying and my wife knows exactly what the call was about.

Because of life and responsibility, my time with these men was confined to a season (called childhood). It wouldn’t be normal to hop on a BMX bike at 40 (with a Kent Tekulve baseball card taped into the spokes) and ride it across town to Kenny’s office. It wouldn’t have been especially normal for Mike to keep driving us to airshows when he was 70 and we were 40. But honestly, I don’t hate that idea.

I think what I’m missing, in addition to these guys themselves, is the feeling of safety and love that they just sort of wordlessly delivered simply by being around. They taught us how to goof off and bust chops and work hard and be generous and stay married. But the best thing was that when they were around, they were responsible and we didn’t have to be. They made sure we had a car that worked, money for burgers, or a place to watch the Super Bowl.

They didn’t judge us when we unsuccessfully tried to change our own oil, gave up, and went to Jiffy Lube. Now, of course, we’re doing the same things for our kids and their friends. And we’re (hopefully) doing it well because of Mike, Terry, Joe, and Kenny (and others like them).

Now, our own bodies are starting to wear down, because that’s what happens in middle age. None of those aforementioned men was especially preoccupied with looking young or staying young. Often, parenting stuff is complex and hard, but sometimes it isn’t, and they all managed to do it well.

I’m encouraged because of them. Do they make dads like these anymore?