My dad called his loved ones Darling. He once passed himself off as a Polish prince at a party in the Hamptons, even though he grew up in a cold water tenement in Williamsburg Brooklyn in the 1950s, the third child of a meat cutter and homemaker newly arrived from Poland. When I asked him about it once, he just laughed and said, “Oh Darling, anyone can be anything for fifteen minutes. Plus I wore a white suit. So.” and then he shrugged, as if the fact of the suit was explanation enough.
He seemed to channel film stars of the golden age with every breath. His moves were studied, and his expressions, posed, but you’d never have known it. He moved seamlessly between the his Darling Club Kids at the Palladium (the uniform: motorcycle boots, tight white jeans, a leather jacket) and his Darling blue bloods at Alice Tully Hall (the uniform: shined shoes, a tailored grey suit, a top coat). He knew someone everywhere, and could always be seen talking conspiratorially, or laughing at some inside joke.
He seemed to dream up new and more exciting versions of himself every couple of years. Daddy in argyle sweaters who directed opera and lived at home. Dad who bleached his hair and lived with Darryl on the lower east side. Dad who taught voice to some of the luminaries of Broadway in the 90s. Dad who took me to Gloria Gaynor at the Roxy over pride weekend. Dad who cruised the village with me as a teenager pointing out cute boys. There were so many iterations of him; so many moments of profound reinvention that for every true version I conjure, there are at least ten more I’ve left out.
His imagination was his superpower; his most incredible gift. He had a way— not just of seeing the people he loved — but of perceiving them. He could somehow hear your most fervent whispered wish; the thing you barely dared breathe, even to yourself, and he would whisper back: I see it too. And then it was he who would conjure you with the power of your desire and his imagination. When seen through his eyes, your life held a kind of crackling possibility. Anything might happen because you had imagined it together.
Three days after he died, I was in my bedroom preparing to leave for the funeral home to view his body before cremation. In those days, I kept looking for proof of him and the magic he could make out of the ordinary business of life and coming up empty handed. In that moment, I was searching for a necklace he had given me as a child; a small red heart on a golden string. I wanted to wear something he’d given me when I went to say goodbye. I opened a tiny velvet draw string bag, thinking it might be in there. When I reached inside, I found a golden chain, at the center of which was one tiny diamond. He had given it to me on the day of my birth. I’d forgotten about it for years, but there it was, waiting to be worn.
When I clasped it around my neck that morning, the small diamond fell just into the notch at the base of my neck below my voice box. I haven’t taken it off since. It is my reminder that the world can crackle with possibility even though he is no longer in it.
And sometimes, in moments of daydreaming, when my heart is beginning to whisper the vision of my own next best imagined self, I will find myself absently touching that necklace. In these moments, I can almost hear it whisper back: I see it too.
While you may not realize it, you too my darling, share the same gift of seeing what others dare to breathe into themselves. ❤️
That is lovely Julia.