My dad and I had a running joke about my dogs. Actually, he had a joke, and my dogs and I were the butt of it. It went like this:
Me (introducing him to my newest dog): This is [insert name]. He's a cross between a lab and a Great Dane/a hound and a golden retriever/a German shepherd and a hundred other dogs.
Him: Wow! How much did you have to pay for a dog like that?
Me (gloating): Nothing! I found him on the street/in a barn/under a board.
Him: You paid too much!
We would both laugh, and then he'd give my scruffy, bargain-basement dogs an affectionate scratch behind the ears and offer them more biscuits than they knew what to do with, all while his dog, an expensive Welsh corgi with extravagant markings and impeccable manners, watched with jealous eyes from my father's recliner. It's one of my favorite memories of my dad to replay.
I don't write about my father much. He died 34 years ago, when he was 61 and I was 26. He was a journalist and an editor and later a publisher, and he worked long hours and on weekends, which meant he was often preoccupied and frequently tired. As a teenager and young adult, I felt his absence keenly, and back then I believed, like a lot of kids with absent-ish parents, that he just didn't care about me. I wish he'd lived long enough for us to work through this false narrative. He'd be 94 now, and along with, I am certain, dispelling my negative beliefs about his absence, he'd have gotten to make the dog joke seven more times.
My dad was a good man. My brother and sister were closer to him than I was, and my aunts and uncles and cousins adored him. Lots of unrelated people, too, have told me how much they loved and respected him. I'm guessing the children of serial killers and terrorists don't hear the kinds of glowing testimonies I heard. "Your dad was a stellar guy, except all that serial killing and terrorism stuff," said no one, ever.
I love that my father loved dogs, and not just the expensive ones from breeders or the ones that were his. I remember he once raced a neighbor's dog to the vet when it was injured. I remember he took me to the Atlanta Humane Society when I was 16 to get a dog of my own and that he took care of her when I went away to college and off and on until I settled down in my own house. This - his love and tenderness toward dogs - is my favorite thing about him, and it is when I am with my own dogs that I feel closest to him.
Of course, my father treasured many things: my mom and all of us kids, for one. He was reverently Jewish (with a few kosher slip-ups), and he valued adherence to tradition. He loved classical music and played the flute, studied and wrote passionately about American history, played a mean game of Scrabble, adored his adopted city of Atlanta, napped epically, kibbitzed happily on the phone with other freelance writers and joyfully consumed his weight in hard salami and canned sardines on saltines. I can still see him balancing half a watermelon on a too-small plate on his way into the den to watch "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" and returning to the kitchen for ice cream later. It's hard not to feel affection for a man with a dog perpetually at his feet, who works hard and loves a good laugh, a long nap and serial snacks.
When he was diagnosed with cancer, at age 57, he was valiant, at least in front of me. I remember going home to Atlanta for a visit from my job in South Georgia and standing in his office doorway as he told me, in a mystifyingly upbeat tone, that they'd found tumors in his bladder. He assured me the cancer had been caught early, that he'd be like new after surgery and chemo. Needless to say, he was not like new, and after a four-year battle, during which time he was in and out of hospitals, he succumbed to his illness. He left behind a corgi named Chelsea, who waited for years in the spot underneath his desk, in case my dad should one day return.
I always think about my dad on Father's Day. I remember how, although there was much he loved, he was famously hard to buy for. The problem seemed to be that he wasn't materialistic; what he cherished were the modest pleasures of food, hard work, family, laughter and comfort. And, of course, dogs: a succession of loving little corgis who seemingly understood, as did he, that the value of love wasn't what it cost, but what you gave to it.
Dana Shavin is the author of "Finding the World: Thoughts on Life, Love, Home and Dogs," a collection of 20 years' worth of her columns, and "The Body Tourist," a memoir of anorexia and recovery. Email her at danaliseshavin@gmail.com, and follow her on Facebook at Dana Shavin Writes. More at Danashavin.com.