Dear friends and family of Rex and Brad,

Jonathan and I wanted to write something to recognize this day. My own emotions are all over the place. We still miss our dad every day, but today is especially sad because we have so many great memories celebrating our father.  Plus, he was great at recognizing other people's birthdays! (Comment below if you ever got a birthday card/email/text/call from him.)

The photo I'm sharing is from his infamous 50th birthday celebration mishap which I'm sure you've all heard about before. His friends decided to throw him a 50th birthday party in a castle in France. Sounds fun, huh? I'll never know because we didn't get to go. (None of us did.)  While all of his faithful friends paid for their tickets over the Atlantic, my dad knew that he and my brother and I could fly non-rev on the airline for which he worked at the time. He had flown stand-by to Paris over 25 times by then and had never had an issue getting a flight. But getting three seats on an international flight during the world cup or French Open (I forget which major sporting event it was), is impossible.  After a full day at the airport trying to get on a plane, my dad decided he didn't want to spend his birthday in an airport and looked for the quickest flight out to someplace nice. Acapulco was indeed nice.  But I'm sure he would have rather been with all his friends in France who had his party without him!  In spite of it all, the three of us made some good memories together (as we always did). In reflecting on that experience, I think about how disappointed he must have been to miss that amazing party, and yet once we pivoted to Acapulco, he was all in--trying to convince us (and maybe himself) that we would still have a great trip because we could have fun anywhere as long as we are together!--"Right kids?" I can still hear him prompting us.  You were so right, Daddy.  And I wish we were together today too!  
xoxo
--Elisabeth


FOMO in the Past Tense

My dad and I didn’t share a birthday — that was his thing with Marilyn Monroe — but we both had the good fortune to be born in June (the Gemini part, not that weird Cancer rump at the end). That fact, plus Father’s Day, plus the end of the school year, plus the days with the most sunshine always made June the best month, hands down, no contest, game over, I dare you to disagree. When I was young, I spent every one of his birthday’s with him. The first one I missed, outside of the 30 he selfishly had before I was born, was during my first year of college. After that, we spent most of them apart, though there were a few more we spent together, including his 70th, when for some reason we all convened for a weekend getaway in the most notoriously gay Mecca in America…West Virginia.

Last year, Elisabeth went to Palm Springs as a surprise, a scheme she cooked up with Brad. At the time, Brad was mere weeks away from a doctor’s visit that would turn into a night in the hospital, which would be extended into several more, which eventually would lead to the end. But Brad was still Brad, a perfect partner in crime, the man least likely to spoil a surprise.

Elisabeth invited me to go with her, but I didn’t. My reasons were all the normal, reasonable reasons. Didn’t have the vacation time, didn’t have the money, didn’t want to fly all the way across the continent for two nights and then fly all the way back. Of course I should have gone. I should’ve just done it. It’s one of my deepest regrets. I don’t feel guilty, though, as if I let him down. Actually, feeling guilty would be letting him down, because he didn’t raise me to be shadowed by guilt. Sure, if you crossed him, he never minded if you felt bad—terrible and ashamed were even better—but guilt? No. Guilt implies a lack of remorse. Guilt is a secret, and he was done with secrets. Penitence, though, is a conversation. Guilt was not his thing; conversation was.

Today is the first June 1st in my entire life I won’t have a conversation with my father. And it’s an enormous loss. I should’ve gone to Palm Springs for his birthday, I should’ve spent more time with him, he shouldn’t have died six weeks before he was supposed to come to New York for Thanksgiving. We had Rockettes tickets, damnit. I could’ve had a million other memories with him. Instead, today, all I feel are the memories I missed. 
--Jonathan