One of my favorite memories of Dad was at my cousin’s wedding.
Tag was the first to get married in our generation of the family. Aunt Ann and Uncle Bill (divorced by this time, but united as Mother and Father of the Groom) went all out.
Tag’s wedding was in an old, cavernous cathedral in Indianapolis. Majestic, with stained glass windows and soaring ceilings, the wedding was elegant and stately.
I was going through a camera-crazy phase. I had a flat, horizontal, Kodak Instamatic with a flash that blinded and stunned. That camera was small, but mighty. And I took pictures of everything.
This was only my second wedding. I didn’t know taking pictures in the middle of a dignified wedding ceremony was not the thing to do because nobody had told me.
So I stood up from the pew right before Tag and JoJo were about to recite their vows, aimed my camera for the altar, and bam!
I sat down next to Dad, who immediately started laughing, and covered his face with his hand in an attempt to hide it.
It didn’t work.
Even though Dad had mastered the art of the near-silent snigger, his quaking shoulders gave him away.
Aunt Ann and Uncle Bill turned around and gave me the look and glared at Dad, who kept laughing.
In fact, Dad didn’t stop laughing for the rest of the ceremony.
Another father would have scolded, reprimanded, or at least corrected their kid for the social gaffe, but not him.
This was not the only time Dad handled something in an unexpected manner.
In high school, I started the unfortunate habit of smoking.
Of course, I got caught.
Robert and I lived with Dad and Terry during the summers while we were in high school when Mom worked in North Carolina. In an attempt to hide my new bad habit, I flushed the cigarette nubs – or thought I did.
Terry saw the bloated butts in my bathroom toilet, and asked me about them. She made it clear she wasn’t big on keeping secrets from Dad, and would tell him.
I was smoking in his boat right before that dreaded conversation.
The boat was a great place to smoke on the sly. The dock was at the end of the backyard, with a shelter over it, and far enough from the house that I could see whoever was coming before they got a good look at me.
Anyway, I remember Dad had his leg in a cast that evening. He’d broken his ankle and then made the injury worse when he had rushed across an airport because he was always late to catch a plane.
As soon as I saw him hobbling down the yard, I tossed my lit cigarette in the water.
Dad raised his brows and didn’t bother making his way to the dock.
“So I hear you started smoking.”
I nodded, my stomach in knots, and wondered how long I would be grounded.
“How much are you smoking per day?”
“I don’t know. Maybe half a pack.”
I didn’t think that was unusual at the time, but damn! That was a helluva lot of smoking for somebody who had started a few months before.
Mom, Dad, and Terry were all smokers. But Dad was the one who wasn’t addicted.
He could smoke Lucky Strike non-filters like a dragon – usually when he was stressed out. But then he’d just stop as if he’d grown bored of it.
“You know, Mary, smoking is a terrible habit and I wish you hadn’t started. But when I was your age, I was allowed to smoke in front of my parents and my teachers. So, if you’re going to smoke, smoke. Don’t sneak around and hide it.”
To Dad’s credit, he kept a straight face and didn’t laugh at the look on mine. I was so floored I couldn’t say a word.
Mom was displeased when she heard because she saw it as giving permission, which made smoking too easy for me.
She had a point.
I did smoke openly from then on until I quit almost 20 years ago, yet I still disagreed with her because I thought it was awesome. I more strongly disagree with Mom now because I know Dad’s approach was not just awesome, but even kind of brilliant.
The choice to smoke was one of my first adult decisions; and even if it was a bad decision, it was mine to make. By stepping aside, Dad settled the responsibility of that choice on me.
Not to mention that sneaking around is degrading. When has that ever motivated anybody to change an unhealthy habit into a wholesome one?
But back to that moment when I was a 16-year-old in a boat, stunned with the realization that I was not in any trouble.
Yeah, I didn’t see that coming.
I guess it’s true what I’ve always heard that we never fully recognize and appreciate the gifts somebody imparted to us until after they’re gone.
Growing up with Dad as my dad was definitely an unusual experience. Jim Mahaffey was not a conventional man by the stretch of even the most vivid imagination, especially considering the time and place he came from.
In many respects, he was light years ahead of his time. His nuggets of wisdom were singular, and I’m fairly certain I could have only learned these particular life lessons from him.
It shouldn’t surprise anybody that one of those wisdom nuggets had to do with money – particularly around lending money.
Over 20 years ago, I worked as a bartender in New Orleans, on Bourbon Street, for the last of the “old-time” families who used to run the French Quarter.
The reward for that job had more to do with the experience of the colorful, crazy characters I worked with. Where money was concerned, I would have made 3 times as much for nearly half the hours at any other bar in the French Quarter.
That bartending gig was the hardest job I ever had, as well as the most demanding and draining. It consumed 50-70 hours of my blood, sweat, and tears every week.
When a “friend,” (not somebody I worked with) had some crisis and asked for a loan of close to a $1000 – the last $1000 I would earn before the miserably hot and slow months of summer – my gut and one of my co-workers said this was a bad idea, but I lent her the money anyway.
It did not end well, and I had no way to get that hard-earned money back.
I was pissed off and bitter about that. And embarrassed.
On my next visit to Florida, I bitched incessantly. Dad listened patiently while I dumped my whines, snivels, and other grievances.
“You never lend money, Mary. Either you give it or you don’t.”
“I didn’t give her the money! That’s-”
He cut me off.
“That’s my point. If somebody asks for a loan, you don’t lend them the money, you give it to them.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It would if you’d listen. If you think of every ‘loan’ as a gift, first you have to consider whether you can afford to be so generous. Whenever you lend money, most of the time you won’t get it back. So let it go. Obsessing about it will only make you miserable and crazy.”
Best. Advice. Ever.
That was not the last time I was confronted with somebody asking for a loan here and there. But that perspective transformed how I handled it.
And for the record, I have been paid back almost every time – usually after I had completely forgotten about my gift to them which had been their loan from me.
I did not receive this next wisdom nugget from Dad readily or easily. In fact, I resisted this thing that he lectured me about for most of my life.
Dad had always been a man with a plan. And he asked me about mine pretty much every time I talked to him.
“So…Mary, what’s your plan?”
“Do you have a plan? Well you need a plan, so get with it.”
“This isn’t going to work, Mary. So. What. Is. Your. Plan?”
These were a few of the variations on the same question and my usual reply was a long and drawn out “Daaadddd…” with an eye roll.
I was all for living in the moment. Plans were rigid, and the killer of spontaneity. So I took Dad’s fixation on “having a plan” as a rain on my parade.
Until the night he shared more insight. This was about 7 years ago. Dad was in the hospital and he asked me what my plan was yet again.
“Don’t have one, Dad. Just living.”
“That’s too bad. A Jesuit priest taught me about how crucial it was to have a plan when I was in high school. He said if I always had a plan, I’d be way ahead of 97% of the guys out there.”
“Why?”
“Because most people don’t have one.”
He paused.
“That old Jesuit was right. I’ve met so many of my goals because of that advice. A plan gives you a path to follow and something to work towards.”
“Well, what if you change your mind?”
Dad shrugged.
“That’s okay. Go ahead and change your mind. And come up with a new plan.”
“Oh.”
That shut me up because Dad’s achievements in his lifetime are mind-boggling.
And he always had a plan.
Dad, born James Watson Mahaffey on Day of the Dead - November 2, 1936, took his last breath at 4:10 in the morning on Friday the 13th, March, 2020.
His funeral was supposed to be on March 23rd, but this was also when the coronavirus picked up momentum, and Dad’s memorial was one of many events that got canceled.
At the time, the tentative plan was a postponement of 2-3 months. However, this has shaped up to be such a mess that it could go on much longer than that.
An indefinite period is a long time to wait to say good-bye, and the limbo of not having a send-off is pretty awful to contemplate.
So, in the meantime, I’ll make use of the internet and my blog in this time of coronavirus to remember Dad in some of his moments of unique glory to wish him safe passage to a place where he can finally rest in peace.
God knows he earned it.
