12/12

I loved that guy from the moment I saw him! (Thanks to my Mom for spending the extra $ to get color film so I didn’t look like I was born in the 30s)

If you took the time to plot good days and bad days for a year, you could literally depict life’s ups-and-downs. Like anyone, I have my share of both good days and bad… but, I can tell you that the worst day of the year, though, is always going to be the same: December 12, a.k.a. 12/12.

December 12 (2012 specifically) is the date I lost my father. “Lost” fits very well here because while at the age of 70 he had his share of aches and pains (bad knees, bad hips, bad back), he seemingly wasn’t suffering from any health issues that would take him from us.

I’ve told the story many times, but I had lunch with him that day. After he retired from the same place I worked, he would come back once-a-week to take me to lunch.

Before we continue with this story, I want to bring this back around to bourbon for just a moment. I think people sometimes wonder what’s it like to work side-by-side with your father for people like Eddie Russell or Freddie Noe. After all, as long as their Dads are at their job, the stand in the shadow of these legends.

I can’t say I know Eddie or Freddie well enough to speak for them, but I can tell you my own experience of working in the same organization as your father… it’s fantastic. I worked a dozen years with my Dad where he was a vice-president I was somewhere in the middle management range.

It’s great, not because there are special privileges. Not because no one ever questions how you got your job. Not because life is perfect and you never squabble at the job with your father. It’s because you are there… with your Dad! Everyday! I would get into work early each day to go up and chat with my Dad… “solving the world’s problems,” that sort of thing. We’d head out to lunch each afternoon. He worked later than I did and if I looked back at his office, there he was watching me leave, so I’d wave.

Is working with your Dad that fantastic even if you believe you can never live up to the standards he set and respect he managed in his career? Yes it is. I mean Eddie Russell and Freddie Noe are going to be remembered for legendary careers in their own right, but me, though? Well, I got laid off from that corporate job about 5-years after my Dad was gone. I wouldn’t change a thing, though. Despite a career that often felt like jail more than a place of employment, those years with my Dad were special.

So my Dad took me out to lunch on 12/12/12. We talked a lot. More than usual even I would say. He told me what a great parent I was with my daughter Cat that day… something that probably wasn’t that important in that moment but would become something I would cherish later. He pulled in the parking lot and another car was at the door so he kept it in drive… meaning my door where still locked. That car finished picking up its passenger, he move forward that other car length and dropped me off right in front of the door. He put it in park and the doors automatically unlocked. I got out of the car, said goodbye, turned and saw him driving away in the blue Lexus he owned.

I didn’t know it, but that would be the last time I ever saw him alive.

Fast forward to about 5:15 p.m. that day… I’m in a meeting with my boss, some co-workers… and the big boss. My phone is buzzing. It’s the Warden. I send it to voicemail. Immediately, it starts silently ringing again… same thing… to voicemail. A minute later… repeat. I need to get out of this meeting, but that’s not how it works. Sure, I’m not saying corporate America is heartless enough to keep me from racing to the hospital to see my father, but I didn’t know what was going on, and if this meant I was going to excuse myself from a meeting to get a grocery list on the way home, I knew I would be in trouble, so I kept sending those calls to voicemail. Finally, the meeting ends and I dart up. I grab my phone to start calling and it’s ringing already so I answered it.

“What,” I proclaimed.

“It’s your Dad…” came the voice on the other end.

For months after that day… a fog. I don’t know what the answer to properly deal with something like that is, but life doesn’t allow you to deal with it as you should. I was still a father with a 15-year-old. I still had a job. I still had a mortgage to pay. I couldn’t sit at my house… alone and stare at the walls as I probably would have if I could. Instead, you pick yourself up, and go through the motions of life… and make an ass out of yourself crying at your desk from time-to-time.

My mind was so messed up, the chairman of the board of the company called me to wish me condolences on the loss of my father. I didn’t know he knew existed, but he certainly knew my father. I was so touched by the call, I picked up the phone and instinctively called my father. I mean its laughable and sad at the same time… I was literally calling my Dad to tell him the chairman had called me about his death.

A lot of other things happened on 12/12 that would change my life forever. The first, there is a definite divide in my mind… life before 12/12/12 and life after 12/12/12. If you give me a date, and it can have nothing to do with my Dad, I guarantee there is a little dude who sits in a desk somewhere in my brain that is going to tell me if that is before or after my Dad’s death. I’m not going to talk about it with you, but if you say, “this bourbon was barreled on June 8, 2011” inside my head, my brain sends me a message, “Your Dad was alive then.”

I’m not even sure what that means, but it just happens.

I also started writing shortly after his passing. My lifelong dream of being a writer was always put on the back burner as there was always an excuse why I was too busy to do it. When you lose someone in an instant, you quickly realize you may never get the chance to pursue a dream if you wait too long. It’s been an evolution to get where I’m at today… some planned… some by chance… but it’s been pretty amazing. I am disappointed my Dad can’t see this… but I’m also happy he has had such a big role in my motivation to do what I am doing now.

The guy who kept sending those phone calls to voicemail? Well, he kinda died that day, too. I totally repriorized my life. Work would never… ever… ever… be more important than family again. I’m sure my attitude change, which started on 12/12 would lead me down the path of not being what the corporate world needed and it led to me being let go.

So be it.

These things are hard to deal with as they happen, but it has been the best thing that ever happened to me. I was stripped of my self-worth, kicked in the ass, but corporate America tucks a little bag of money under your arm to make you go away peacefully and what you do from that point forward is up to you. Thankfully, I didn’t lie down a ball of sorrow… I used this travesty to “work scared” from that point forward… to work from fear of if I fail, I’m back to being a corporate number… a lifeless being that allows a company to suck the life out of you in exchange for your time, your creativity and your hard work for guaranteed salaries, 401(k)s, vacation days and dental plans and ownership of your soul (it sound ominous, but they really kind of do).

Today, 12/12 remains a tough day. The year after my Dad died, I took the day off of work and continued to do so while I had the corporate gig. It was a day of remembrance of my father and time to reflect about life and priorities. In 2017, when I was let go, it didn’t seem as special to be at home since that’s where I work, so I once again reworked the idea and invited friends and family over to my house on 12/12 to drink bourbon… during the work day… as a reminder to all to cherish those that truly care about you and never to prioritize work over them. I’m not saying anyone should quit corporate America, nor am.I judging anyone who has that type of job… just remember, your’ there to do a job… and take care of yourself because the day they don’t need you… or can find someone to do it for less… is the day they will get called into the conference room in HR for a “brief meeting.”

It ends up being a fun day where we create memories with friends by opening up special bottles, sharing some laughs and memories. It’s this weird group of “pre-bourbon industry and post-bourbon industry” friends but it works great.

Of course, all of the laughs and friends doesn’t make it a great day. In the end, it’s always going to be the day I lost my Dad.

Wouldn’t it just be easier to skip over this day?

Treat it like any other?

Simply try to forget the worst thing that ever happened to me actually happened.

If there is one thing I can share with you is that when it comes to my father, I don’t want to forget. There isn’t a such thing as “getting over the loss of a loved one” we just become more adept at dealing with it and recognizing this date helps me.

So, cheers to you on 12/12… and cheers to my Dad!

Story shared in loving memory of Larry Akley (8/20/42 - 12/12/12).