John Broome - Letters from Dad: Lessons and Love

Will the Real You Please Stand Up? and ItWhat You DoNot When You Do It United Technologies Corporation, 1983 and 1979, respectively, and reprinted from the Wall Street Journal. Excuses, Excuses, by Thomas Sowell, and Spare the Prod, Spoil the Child, by Dyan Machan, are reprinted by permission of Forbes Magazine, Forbes Inc., 1991. Winemakers Sentenced for Switch, by Alex Pulaski, Please, God, Im Only 17 Still True, and Burn Survivor Talks to Teens about Stamina, by John D. Cramer, are reprinted with the permission of the Fresno Bee. To Predict Divorce, Ask 125 Questions, by Jane Brody, copyright 1992 by The New York Times Company, reprinted by permission.

Some names and identifying details, including the names of Jacks classmates at the Cate School, have been changed in order to protect the privacy of individuals involved.

Copyright 1996 by John Broome and Jack Broome

All rights reserved.

Warner Books, Inc.

Hachette Book Group

237 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10017

Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

First eBook Edition: September 2009

ISBN: 978-0-446-56512-7

When I stepped into the dining room, my father was standing there with tears in his eyes. I knew at once that these were tears of joy. He stepped toward me, gave me a smile, and threw his arms around me. Ill never forget the feeling I had as the chills went through my body. Then my dad turned and pointed to the dining room table. Looking over, I saw the two opened letters sitting side by side on the table, one from Thacher School and one from Cate School.

My dad had introduced me to the idea of going away to boarding school when I was in fifth grade and I had been intent on doing it from that point on. I knew that in such a competitive world I had to get the best education possible, and in the end I d have no choice but to leave Fresno to go to a boarding school. After every report card, my dad and I would sit down and talk about how I was doing and what I had to do in order to get the grades to be accepted to the schools of my choice.

I didnt even need to read the letters across the room, since I could see that the first word on both of them was Congratulations. That was all that I needed. It was like a dream. Speechless, I hugged my dad again. I will never forget the look on his face and the tears in his eyes when I walked in the door that day.

My dad left the decision as to which school up to me. He said I had earned the right to choose. And, after we revisited Cate and Thacher, I picked Cate. Well, I had reached my first goal. All of the years of hard work in grammar school had paid off, and I was going off to boarding school.

But it was not until late in the summer before freshman year that I realized how hard it was going to be to leave home. My dad and I had been best friends since I was a young boy, and by eighth grade, we were inseparable. We did just about everything together. When I was young we went to the zoo together many weekends, and when we werent out doing something like that, I would sit for hours with him in his study while he worked.

Then, when I was about eleven years old, my parents got divorced. Let me tell you, divorce isnt a fun thing for a kid to deal with. I found out about it one day when my dad picked me up from a friends house. Instead of going straight home, my dad passed the house and parked in an olive orchard down the road. It was then that he told me a divorce was imminent. I was crushed. The safe, stable world I had grown accustomed to seemed to be collapsing all around me. All that I could do was trust my dad when he told me that everything would turn out all right.

When my dad moved out of our house, it wasnt long before I went to live with him. It was during the years of living together that my dad and I became even closer. We spent every evening and almost every weekend together. I accompanied him to many of his business meetings and dinners, and was always included in the conversation. My dad really seemed to listen to my ideas. On weekends, we would go shooting together or just hop in the car and head for some adventure in the mountains. But no matter what it was we were doing, my dad always found some lesson in it for me. The business meetings, the drives (we called them adventures), they all had an objective. Even the chores that my dad made me do every day around the house had a purpose. I didnt get paid for my chores because my dad had taught me that to be part of the household, it was my responsibility to do my fair share to keep things together. I didnt realize it at the time, but in the years that we lived alone together, my dad was doing everything that he could to teach me what the world is really like.

When the time came to head off to Cate School, I really didnt know what to think or what to take or even exactly what to wear. My dad and I werent very happy about the idea of being separated. As I packed, my cat, Frazzle, seemed to sense a change coming and became more hysterical by the day.

Although my dad did not really want to see me go, he knew that I had to go. His first concern had always been my best interest, and he knew that going away to school was the best thing for me. The time had come for me to take everything that he had taught me and put it into practice, to do a bit of growing by myself. I was only a fourteen-year-old kid from Fresno (and I was scared), but the challenge excited me.

When my dad brought me to Cate and the time came to say good-bye, he said something that seemed strange at the time. Jack, he said, I think that it will be better if I dont write you for a few weeks. I want to give you time to really settle in and get used to being away at school. Well, he was telling the truth. For about three weeks I did not receive any letters from my dad. We talked on the phone a few times, but that was it.

I really began to miss the communication, so I called and asked my dad to write me. Bang! That was all it took. The letters started coming. Every other day or so I received one. My friends thought it was hilarious. They thought that it was even funnier when they saw that some of the letters began with sentences like Lets talk about death, Lets talk about sex, or Let s talk about politics. Then some of my close friends began asking to read Dads letters. And I realized they were something very special.

These letters have been the primary way that my dad and I have kept up our relationship in my four years away at Cate. I should have known that my dad would find a way to keep in touch and keep teaching me. Every letter that he sent me took on a new issue. If I was having a problem with something, my dad would write me a letter of advice on how I might deal with it. If I did not understand something, he would write me a letter explaining whatever it was that I could not understand. And if I was doing just fine, he would use his letters to encourage me to keep it up, to catch me up on current events at home, and to generally explain some of the many different aspects of his life to me.

For the first few months, adjusting to Cate was the main topic of most of my dads letters. Once I had settled in, the letters became more teaching instruments than anything else. My dad and I talked on the phone every couple of nights, but my dad put the meat of what he wanted to talk to me about in letters. This probably made more sense, because sometimes I had to reread his letters several times over before I really understood what he was trying to explain.

For me it was different. I had no problem getting everything off my mind with my dad on the phone. I just didnt have the time or really the ability to put all of my thoughts onto paper. Sometimes my dad had trouble understanding this, but I really think he understood more than he let on. He got very frustrated at the fact that I rarely sent letters. At first he said he thought that I just didnt appreciate his letters and that I wasnt taking the time to absorb what he wrote. He couldnt have been more wrong. It was because of his letters that my dad and I remained so close even after I left home. Because we could no longer spend as much time together as we had when I was home, it was the letters that kept us close. I treasured every letter as if it were a part of me.