Happy Father’s Day
By Sarah Swinwood
From January to June, my father didn’t speak to me. Five months without one of those phone calls where we’d go over everything happening in our lives, to process and distill. Dad has always been my favourite person to do this with, reminding me who I am beyond fear and judgment, with a positive spin on every challenge.
“No one is standing beside you with a clipboard, checking this box and crossing another, evaluating your every move with a high or low score. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. Remember who you are and be grateful for it. Be thankful for your gifts as you learn how to apply them.”
He would often tell me this whenever I’d express concern over how I was being perceived or felt slow in my progress. All of our conversations would leave me feeling uplifted, no matter the subject. Even when saying things maybe I didn’t want to hear, his words inspired courage. He’d reiterate that he was my best friend and biggest fan, a truly wise speaker with the skills of an all-star coach. He didn’t speak to me for five months, not because he was done with our conversations but because his voice was healing from a throat procedure.
Many difficulties arose during that time and we weren’t able to chat about, things I desperately wanted to consult with him on. I would hear his voice in my mind and chat with him in dreams, but not being able to have those weekly calls brought me down. I always knew that his positive perspective and intentional joy were rare, the hiatus only served to enhance that there is truly no other Michael Swinwood. No other person with his combination of clear insight and charismatic humor. When I’d use some of his classic phrases in conversation, people would often say they’d never heard anything like that or that it made them pause to reflect on what I meant. I’d reply that it was one of my dad’s sayings. Not speaking with him for so long made me realize I’d benefit from compiling a glossary of his terms.
“Whaddya know for sure?” Instead of a simple “how are you?”
“If I was any better, there’d be three of me,” in response to someone asking him how he was.
“Nice day if it doesn’t snow.” In the middle of summer.
“Six to one, half a dozen to the other.” When there’s an unclear yet arbitrary choice.
“Don’t worry, be Hopi.” Instead of saying no problem at all, derived from the song ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ referencing the Hopi people rather than the mood.
“I’m gonna blow a gasket.” When laughing too hard.
“Who wants to (insert task here)? I’ll give you a quarter. Ok, I’ll give you ten cents…” How is the price going down, I wondered?
“How am I? How do you think I am? The sky is blue, the sun is shining over the mountain peaks in front of me as I drive through the Sacred Valley of the Inca on another spectacular day… how am I? How do you think I am? I’m blessed.”
As I search my mental archives for more it becomes apparent just how inside baseball many of his expressions and reactions are. It’s part of what makes him not only unique but charismatic, his unabashed willingness to be himself without trying to explain. He endears himself to strangers and melts the barriers that tend to go up when we’re too matter-of-fact or repetitive. Growing up, seeing the way he’d interact with people on the street, in a bank or in a restaurant, I thought he knew strangers personally due to his level of warmth and engagement. What I understand now is that he was acting from a place of awareness of the human condition, of how tough life can be and how a simple stray from the mechanical mold we adhere to can turn dust into sparkle or flip a frown to a smile. After my first day of High School, he came to pick me up and I introduced him to Tiffany, the senior who had been my guide that day for integration. He quickly pulled a five dollar bill out of his pocket, trying to hand it to her,
“What’s this?”
“It’s for you, you earned it.”
“What? No, you don’t have to pay me.”
“Come on, take it, you hung out with this one all day.” He joked, motioning towards me.
She laughed. I laughed and sneered. He laughed. That was always the very best part of my day throughout my young life, when dad came to pick me up from wherever I was.
He never knew his own father, not really. They’d met once on a disastrous camping trip in his late teens where Mel, my grandfather, got totally hammered and exploded a can of beans over an open fire. The second time, a sister he had never met found my dad in the phone book, saw he was a lawyer and phoned to ask him to pay for Mel’s casket. He went and met her where she was living in a trailer park to make the arrangements, a stack of tabloid magazines piled on her kitchen table, beside an ashtray the size of a fish bowl filled with cigarette buts.
“How, dad? How are you so joyful and loving to everyone after all that you went through growing up?”
Dad had one older sister, my aunt Joan, who was insatiably cruel to him while they were growing up. I met her only twice. His mother, my grandmother Rita, was in and out of the hospital most of the time, where I’d join him to visit her weekly. We’d sing a funky tune like ‘Low Rider’ by WAR in the elevator to lighten the mood on our way up to her room, where she had a picture of him wearing a suit hanging up on the wall looking like what she wanted to see him as, not as he actually was. Varying shades of neon clothes, perpetually with a bandana on his head, most likely in his favorite color, pink. Once, he went to the UK when I was seven and got a pair of blue and red bowling shoes that he wore until they disintegrated off of his feet, with a pair of blue Levi’s jeans and a varsity jacket. It was the bowling shoes or a pair of tan cowboy boots, tucked into those jeans. Dad always crafted his own distinct style that reminds of a cross between what Eddie Murphy wore in ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ and Tommy Chong from ‘Cheech and Chong’, yet always uniquely his own. Wildly handsome, in the late 80s and early 90s his appearance was compared to either Mel Gibson or Michael Douglas. Dad always tells me that when I was born, ‘Beast Of Burden’ by The Rolling Stones came on the radio and he and my uncle Robert turned it up in a state of giddy rapture on their way to the hospital, when Mick Jagger sang ‘Pretty, pretty, pretty girl, such a pretty, such a pretty, such a pretty girl.’ I was born seven years after my brother Sean, his first baby girl, and he was ecstatic. He has five children, by the way. Two sons and three daughters.
“How do you think I’m doing? I’m blessed.”
“Why am I so joyful and loving? Because of Père Murray, from Notre Dame College in Wilcox, Saskatchewan. He helped shape who I am, teaching me to ask questions and be a seeker.” Dad responded when I asked him why he was such a joyful, loving person.
“Athol Murray planted seeds of self-reliance in me, emphasizing the importance of reflection and teamwork. He told me, if you want to build a bridge, you need a blueprint, materials and a crew to assemble it. If you want to burn a bridge, all you need is a match.”
This led him to read the works of great thinkers and philosophers, engaging with the teachings of Gurdjieff, P.D. Ouspensky and the theosophist Alice. A Bailey who, at the beginning of each of her books, would include a prayer for humanity called
The Great Invocation:
From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth into the minds of humanity.
Let Light descend on Earth.
From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into the hearts of humanity.
May Christ* return to Earth.
From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide the little wills of humanity–
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.
From the centre which we call the race of humanity
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.
Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.
On June 7th, 2025 - one week before Father’s Day - Michael Swinwood phoned me for the first time in five months. That week, I’d hit one of my lowest points in the space of our nonverbal communication. Who would be there to believe in me when I didn’t believe in myself? To see me for who I was in the light when I felt judged or misunderstood? Everything he had told me throughout my life, about loving myself through every misstep, persevering with my goals despite the chaos of the world or the opinions of others. Who would help me uphold these teachings and remember? If his voice didn’t return, would anyone else in the family help me with this? Why did it feel like the world’s biggest plot twist, like everything he said would come to pass in our lives was turning dark?
Then the phone lit up. PAPA SWIN. I couldn’t believe it. Not only was his voice back, so were the jokes, the encouragement, the stalwart reminder to be grateful for who I am, just as I am at this moment. June 7th, 2025, I was given time to rejoice in the gift of my father’s voice again, to receive the healing it brings when he uses it. A reminder that every moment is an opportunity to choose joy, especially when facing a world filled with darkness and uncertainty.
