Although they are called office parks, the places I worked were more office than park-like.
However, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March 2020, I found myself confined to my suburban home office and discovered the wonders outside my window: towering trees teeming with birds, a graceful deer, and squirrels scurrying to find their hidden treasures.
Every morning, the resounding songs of the birds filled the air, and I grew curious about why they sang at sunrise. Through some haphazard research on the internet, I learned that the birds use their morning songs as a way to inform their loved ones that they have survived the perils of the night.
By listening closely, I could discern their responses to one another: “Are you okay?” “I’m okay.”
These birds learn their songs while nestled in the nest with their parents and siblings. It is not a sound they hear with their ears, but rather with their hearts.
My Daily Reminder of My Dad
During the first 18 years of my life, my small bedroom faced the front of my parents’ house, which was closest to the front door. Each night, I could hear my dad’s arrival at 11:00 after closing the drugstore. The familiar jingle of his keys as he struggled to unlock the door while carrying a bag of items requested by my mother became the comforting background noise of countless nights spent awake in that very room.
Back then, those sounds seemed insignificant, but now they serve as the soundtrack to countless moments lying in bed.
It wasn’t until about 20 years later, when I had a family of my own and brought home our first dog, that I realized what I had internalized all those nights. I surprised my kids with the little furry creature tucked into my pocket, just like my dad used to do. At night, I would venture outside and whistle for the dog to come inside when it grew too cold or I grew tired.
A Familiar Whistle
On that first night, I whistled a tune without a name. It was a melody that nobody else in the world would recognize, not even my dad. Yet, it was familiar to me, as natural as the sound of my own breath, even if it remained anonymous.
I stood there for a moment, attempting to place the origin of the tune. For days, I would go outside at night and reproduce this melody that effortlessly escaped my lips, but I couldn’t recall where I had learned it.
And then it struck me—it was my father’s whistle, the same sound he used to call our dog, Charlie. It was a tune that had accompanied my slumber throughout those countless nights. In those days, my dad probably whistled with a cigarette in his mouth and a watch on his wrist, while I replicated the same whistle with ear pods plugged in, engrossed in solving online crossword puzzles.
A recurring theme in the concluding episodes of Succession is that children yearn to hear someone say, “You’re just like your father.” Regardless of whether your father resembles Ward Cleaver or Logan Roy, his influence looms over you.
During our youth, we spend most of our time distancing ourselves from that influence.
In our twenties and thirties, we resist resembling our fathers too closely, as they represent old age, whereas we strive for independence. However, when we reach our forties, with our own children and homes, we find ourselves standing outside, waiting for the dog, and realize that our fathers’ imprint is upon us, much like the morning birdsongs.
Here I stand in my fifties, in the chilly driveway, wondering if anyone in my house hears my whistle. Progressive Insurance attempts to convince a group of clueless adults that we can undo the ways we resemble our parents, but I know there are things we cannot unlearn.
There are melodies etched upon our hearts, unnoticed yet present.
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