A six-inch-tall polymer statue of an animated middle-aged man stood on a shelf in the guest room closet of my stepmother Charlotte’s condo when I visited from Chicago the week my father took his last breaths in hospice care. I bought it for him as a child, either for his birthday or Father’s Day the year after my mother died.
I remember exactly how I felt when I saw it in one of those old-timey drugstores in the village square, a banana-seat bike ride from our tiny clapboard home. I thought, this is perfect! Not because it served my purpose — to get him a throw-away gift — but because I could hardly believe I had stumbled upon a thing that spoke to me personally. It was right there, inscribed on the statue’s base. In my mind, it was a foregone conclusion that my dad was indeed the “World’s Best Father,” and here it was, smiling. At me.
I was eight years old, probably intent on buying Wacky Packages and a Clark bar. I know it wasn’t a Zagnut candy bar. Those were just Clark bars without the chocolate shell. What a scam.
I had no idea then that there were probably thousands mass-produced, a few standing in every drugstore nationwide. All I knew was that it was in that drugstore at that very moment. And I found it. And paid for it with my very own money—money I earned for doing nothing. Money that my dad most certainly gave me. Still, it was mine, and I had to decide to let it go from my hands at the register.
I don’t recall how my father received it when I gave it to him. He might have smiled and said thanks. Given the irony of buying his own gift through an innocent child, he might have chuckled. I have no idea how he felt. I was so self-consumed that all I cared about was how I felt. I thought I was a genius. Sure, I was proud of myself for being thoughtful, but I felt most proud of being smart enough to buy a gift suited for the occasion. Again, my father was without doubt the best in the world.
Afterward, my gift stood on his dresser like an Oscar, and not say, at the bottom of a garbage can. It thrilled me no end. I recall looking at it every time I went into his bedroom, holding it in my hands, marveling at its substantial weight.
The only thing that bothered me was that it looked nothing like him. I was a budding artist, trying to render things to look as they were, and this was not a reasonable facsimile. I didn’t yet understand marketing or what it took to produce such a thing. I guess the novelty developers called a meeting and possibly decided this was the best combination of features for all dads, which would negatively affect the least number of children considering its purchase.
What I liked most was that my father never threw it away. It successfully found its way from our tiny home to a first-tenant apartment in 1974 and from there to our townhouse, then down the street to a house we rented. There it stood on his desk in his home office among mounds of papers, bills, and files as he struggled, albeit successfully, to build his own business. I would see it years later in another home, standing on his mahogany desk, where it resided for decades more. And somehow, amidst the sale of that house and his dementia and problematic state, it ended up in his and Charlotte’s downsized condo. Never lost.
I like to think that he could never part with it. Something cherished the moment he received it 40 years prior. I suppose he did. The sentimentality of this goofy little piece of crap touched him to be sure. Perhaps he knew that I meant it when I gave it to him and that it wasn’t a bullshit offering. Maybe it just reminded him of his disheveled son. Was it assurance that he was indeed the world’s best? I don’t know. I never asked why he never abandoned it.
Perhaps it was more sustainable than a paper plate with macaroni glued and spray-painted gold. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that he took on the responsibility— among many—to be the guardian of something truly worthless given its monetary value and saw it for its true value. And that trait is one of the many reasons I admired him. His heart was charged with love.
After the funeral, I claimed the statue and returned to Chicago, wondering what to do with it. We were tightly packed with keepsakes in an apartment a quarter the size of the condo we left in Ohio. I considered offering it to Shalonda, the girl in the Section 8 building next door. She was about 8. I knew that her mother had died, and she lived with her Daddy. Maybe she would want to give it to him.
This year, the Best Dad trophy turned 52. Sadly, I must accept that it will eventually end up in a landfill when I am no longer. I may require the executor of my estate to donate it to a secondhand store so that it might live on, catching the eye of an unsuspecting child who thinks, "This is perfect!”
Eric, this is perfect! ❤️