This didn’t happen on Father’s Day; I’m pretty sure it was Independence Day weekend, 1992. I was living in NYC on a frayed shoestring of a budget, and had splurged on a plane ticket to fly to Virginia to see my serious boyfriend of 3.7 years (that’s called ‘foreshadowing’). I landed in Roanoke and took the bus to Lexington. My boyfriend picked me up in a car he’d borrowed from a friend, broke up with me, drove me back to the Roanoke airport, slowed down enough for me to roll out clutching my duffel bag, and left me there.

Well. I had to change my plane ticket anyway. I couldn’t face going back to New York to sit by myself for the long weekend, and my workplace was closed so I couldn’t even pick up hours to make back some of the money. But USAir flew direct from Roanoke to Pittsburgh, and I could easily get a train or a bus back to NYC from Pittsburgh, so I decided: I could go HOME.

If you’ve ever been dumped like that, you know I was a wreck. Meanwhile, my lovely daddy had a long history of “putting mom on the phone” if I called with anything that smelt even remotely of difficulty. For example, when I called home to say “Thanks for the Ivy League engineering degree! Guess what? I’m going to Library School!” his response was literally, “Well………….I’m going to put your mom on the phone.”

In 1992, I never called home directly and let it ring through. I called, let it ring twice, hung up, and waited for a call back. This was by my parents’ preference and request; they were happy to pay for the long-distance calls (as a parent, I also recognize the hidden bonus of knowing that I was where I said I was, back in the days of land-lines…). So if I called and let it ring until they answered, which happened almost never, it meant Something Was Up.

I was shaking and snotty and I had a calling card and I found a pay phone and I let it ring through (mom, pick up; mom, pick up, mom, pick up), until my dad answered: “Hello?”

“Hi, it’s Michelle.”

“Hi?”

“I’m at the Roanoke airport and I need to come home right now. They can put me on a flight to Pittsburgh. Can you pick me up?”

AND WHAT FOLLOWS IS THE BEST MOMENT THAT HAS EVER OCCURRED IN THE HISTORY OF PARENTING AND I CAN ONLY HOPE THAT I GET ONE CHANCE IN MY KIDS’ LIVES TO BE THIS HEROIC:

“Sure. We’ll be really happy to see you. What time do you land? We’ll be there.”

I have had the good fortune later in adulthood to have experienced this purity of love more than once more, and for that I am infinitely grateful. But every Father’s Day, and often at other times too, I reflect on the utter perfection of that moment  — no questions, no hesitation, no sigh, no deflection to mom  (she got to do her heroics on the back end of this weekend, never fear!) — and am acutely thankful to my dad.

Happy Father’s Day.