My Dad Just Died. He Would Want You To Gather.

Lessons from a very connected life

Hi Friends,

Two big things happened in my life this week.

1. Priya Parker, the author of the book “The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters” and the Group Life newsletter, was the guest on The Ezra Klein Show. She gave a very strong recommendation to “Talk To Your Boys,” calling it “brilliant and beautiful” and suggesting that people read it together with Ruth Whippman’s “BoyMom.” This is a podcast with hundreds of thousands of listeners and huge cultural influence, and being recommended there is a big deal. We were thrilled.

2. My father died. His death was not unexpected - he had an aggressive form of prostate cancer that was spreading through his body - but it came very fast. Luckily he felt very little pain, and my family and I were able to be with him, care for him, and tell him we loved him before he passed.

My dad always seemed to be greeting the world with a smile

At first, I didn’t see these items as related at all. But then I got a chance listen to the podcast in full and reflect on the messages Parker shared, and the echoes between her excellent advice about forging human connections and the way my dad lived his life started to become clear.

My father died about five blocks away from where he grew up. He never moved out of his hometown of Elkhorn, Wisconsin, but he made connections all over the world. My dad was an extroverted, social man who would talk to anyone. He and my mom Jean were married for 55 years, and enjoyed a wonderfully loving and adventurous life together.

One of the places my dad gathered regularly was at the weekly meeting of the Elkhorn Rotary Club, and he loved the organization’s focus on service and community betterment. He was a founding member of the club, which started in July 1969. He remained active in Rotary his whole life, serving as club president twice. It was such a big part of his life he recorded a StoryCorps interview about it.

One of the big tasks he took on was coordinating the club’s youth exchange program, which he did for decades. He worked with Wisconsin students as they prepared to go on international exchanges, and welcomed students from many countries as they arrived for a year in the U.S. My dad and mom themselves hosted exchange students from the Netherlands, Turkey, Finland, Brazil, and France.

With his encouragement, my sister Cary participated in a short-term Rotary exchange in the Netherlands, and a year-long Rotary exchange in Brazil while she was in high school.

The map on my parents’ wall, with pins showing all the places they have visited

My mom and dad loved traveling together, and made trips to dozens of different countries, eventually visiting every continent except Antarctica. They often stayed with people they met through Rotary’s International Travel & Hosting Fellowship, and regularly hosted guests from around the world at their home. They loved entertaining, especially throwing unique theme parties.

In 1999, they expanded their family to include two “sons,” Nazim and Fadil, who arrived as refugees from Kosovo. My folks helped them establish a new life in Wisconsin, where they are both now thriving members of the community.

In 2021, my mom and dad helped sponsor a family of seven refugees from Afghanistan, in partnership with a local church. They provided support and housing as the big family resettled and figured out the ins and outs of life in America. The family reached out to my mom with condolences as soon as they heard my dad had passed.

When he was home, my dad enjoyed spending time at my family’s cottage on Lauderdale Lakes, especially taking people out on the pontoon boat in his role as “Captain John.”

He loved Elkhorn and was committed to giving back to his local community. He was a member of the Elkhorn Economic Development Alliance and served on the Executive Committee of the Walworth County Economic Development Alliance. He helped start the Elkhorn Fund and served on its advisory board.

He retired from his work in commercial real estate work in 2015, but continued to use his real estate skills to help local service organizations, like the Open Arms Free Clinic and New Beginnings APFV, which supports survivors of domestic violence and abuse. Multiple people have made donations to these organization in his honor, which he would have appreciated so much.

As his son, my dad always made it very clear how proud he was of me, but that was especially true this year when “Talk To Your Boys” came out. He told so many people about it I think he may be the reason it hit the bestseller list!

These were the kind of things that I was thinking about while listening to Parker and Klein talk about gathering and how to bring people together.

“These next few years are going to be long,” Klein says. “I am tempted to say we’re going to need to take breaks — and that is true. But we’re also just going to need each other. Thinking about how we pull the people we love closer and how we are more in community rather than less — more together rather than more alone — is as essential as any political, civic or personal discipline could possibly be right now.”

The whole episode is excellent, and its messages about how to build community with others and how to share space with people who are different than you really reminded me of my dad.

Give it a listen, make some plans to get together with people, and - if you have a dad who is still around - give him a good long hug.

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