On Spending Time with Those You Love
For me, that's my dad
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Today’s topic is a swerve from our usual. Prompted by the occasion of Father’s Day, I’m sharing a little bit about my incredible dad.
I’m writing from the car this week while riding shotgun next to Tim as we inch closer to his alma mater, Williams College, for his 20th year(!!!) college reunion. This, coupled with the fact that I turned 35 on Thursday, has me thinking a lot about time. So many of us, it seems, overemphasize the importance of money, status, and career success, rather than placing value on life’s real commodity: time. I lost my mom in 2017, when I was 27. Since then, I’ve been painfully aware of the value and unpredictability of time. How do we slow it down?? If any of you have the answer, please fill me in! A more reasonable question seems to be, “How can we make our precious time on earth more fulfilling?” The answer I keep coming back to is this: spending time with the people we love, doing what we love, as much as we can.
Tim, Elsie, and I live 3,000 miles away from our family most of the year. It’s the reason we make the journey back for the long, glorious, three-month stretch of East Coast summer. We’re here to slow down, embrace the growing gaggle of cousins, and really prioritize being with family. These summers crystallize into magical, sun-drenched memories that hold a very special place in my heart. And where would we be without my dad? He’s the very glue that keeps our family together and the reason we all keep flocking back “home” summer after summer.
My three older brothers and I really hit the jackpot getting the parents we did. Happily married for 40 years. A love story unlike any other I know. And as far as parents go, we got the best in the game. I’ve written about my mom, who is a huge reason I was inspired to start The Lacey List, but I haven’t told you much about my dad (besides over Substack notes, which somehow always spark crazy engagement!). In honor of Father’s Day yesterday, now feels like the perfect opportunity to change that.
A natural-born storyteller with a twinkle in his eye, my dad is a little bit of an icon. An old-school gentleman in every sense of the word, but somehow still a modern dad. Unfazed by diapers and quick to jump in to support my mom with the parenting load that is raising four kids. He has an incredible work ethic and an even stronger set of family values, something he passed along to all of us kids. Born in Brazil, my dad spoke Portuguese before English. When he played cops and robbers, he’d say “bang-y bang-y!” He’d play “futebol” barefoot with his friends until he got his first pair of American sneakers. They were “P.F. Flyers” that looked like they had suction cups on the bottom. Of course, he had to fork over the right foot to the other team “just to be fair.”
His overseas upbringing made way for an international career, where he spent years traveling to far-flung pockets of South America trading copper, silver, and gold. He has countless stories from this time when, even in his nascent twenties, he was negotiating industry-defining deals with the titans who ran it in his very best Portuguese and Spanish. From there he went on to private investment banking and later executive search. Throughout each chapter of his career, he brought humor and creativity. He made time to mentor others, something that is evident by the number of younger colleagues he’s still close with today who are now in leadership roles.
But, throughout his dynamic career, one thing was always clear: family came first. When I was a little girl, I remember calling him at the office. He answered, and we had a nice chat. He then said, “I’m in the middle of a board meeting, so I have to go, but I’ll call you back.” He always made us feel like we were the top priority. On long trips away, when he was missing us, he would scribble on bits of hotel notepad stories to tell us later. On one particular trip to Hong Kong, he dreamt up a heroic creature named Aubrey Bird, and an entire series of children’s stories was born. The stories are burned in my memory and, even today, almost 35 years later, they really hold up.
Years later, my dad described how painful it was when he’d get back from a trip to Asia to see that we had visibly grown bigger. Now that I’m a parent, it stings to think about! When I turned six, we moved from Connecticut to Charleston, South Carolina. It meant my dad would “commute” to and from New York City, up every Tuesday morning and back every Thursday night. To make it feel like he was home, he started this ritual of reading to us every night. Many nights, I would fall asleep while he was reading to me over the phone. When I got too quiet, he’d say, “Lacey? Lacey?” And if he got no answer, he would know I was asleep. I love this picture because it reminds me that, against the odds, my dad always put the effort in to make sure he was woven into the fabric of our lives.
As we got older and started jobs of our own, my dad became a career mentor for each of us. When I was first starting out, he encouraged me to start my own business rather than getting a job working for someone else, something he described as a “long and dusty road.” Imagine building a business helping brands navigate social media circa 2012? He was well ahead of the times! He helped me negotiate retainers, put together contracts, and he even got in there on photoshoots with me. More than anything, he believed in my career before I believed in it myself. He gave me the much needed confidence that my twenty-something self was lacking. What a gift.
Growing up, I thought every family operated the way ours did: close-knit and family first. With four kids, every day felt a little like a party. Even as we got into our teenage years, family dinner was a given, which often stretched to 10:30 or 11 pm, usually to our friends’ exasperation. Only then did I realize how much my parents sacrificed to raise our family the way they did. My appreciation for my parents has blossomed exponentially as I’ve gotten older and become a parent. And those mandatory dinners? There is nothing in the world I would trade them for now.
Fast forward to today, and my dad is recreating the childhood we had but for his grandkids. Elsie is #6 for him! He just arrived in Long Island on June 1st, and we’ve now clocked two blissful weeks under the same roof. To see the way Elsie has taken to him is the sweetest thing, and I’m finding myself cherishing this precious time together. It just so happens to be exactly what I intended with the idea of spending time with the people I love. We’re only a few weeks into our time on the East Coast and I’m already deeply aware of how special it is. So, here’s to a wonderful summer ahead. I hope you can spend it with the people who make you the happiest.
Happy (one-day belated) Father’s Day to all the incredible dads out there!
My friend Kate recently started a new job at Frame and introduced me to the fact that they make so much more than denim. This crochet cardigan has been working overtime in my summer rotation and this now that it’s peak summer, this will be a go-to for day-to-night.
Frame’s Crochet Cardigan // Gingham Bubble Shorts from Posse I keep seeing these Gingham Bubble shorts all over my favorite Substacks. Adding to cart for July 4th and beyond.
A new-to-me brand Perfumehead just dropped an irresistible new fragrance: 1272. “Easily one of the coolest and most exciting fragrance houses around,” Perfumehead is already Violet Grey’s #1 selling fragrance. 1272 is a first-ever coltrait, a cologne-extrait hybrid inspired by the Wexler House, founder Daniel Patrick Giles’ Palm Springs home.
Call me biased, but I love the Rothy’s Lightweight Tote. They just dropped a new color as part of a court-side collection. It’s perforated and sporty and, as with all of their lightweight totes, features a critical element: a built in keychain that prevents you from losing your keys in the abys that is an often over-packed tote! The Vanity Set in Volley is also cute (and very giftable). I’m a little pouch addict and this might be just what I need to house my toiletries in my beach locker this summer.
Rich Girl Nation by Money With Katie is out! I heard Katie on the Morning Brew podcast a few weeks ago and, boom, was immediately sold. I like the Audible version for walks or long drives.
He is a remarkable Father.
Sooo sweet. It’s funny, my husband and I always talk about how our dads also traveled for a living and weren’t home Monday-Friday, but how we never thought anything of it, since it was just the norm and they were there in so many other ways