It's 27 June 2017 and it would have been my dad's 70th birthday today.
He died of cancer when he was 50. I was 22. So it's been twenty years, give or take, and on days like this I find myself doing the sums. The things I never got to say to him. The times he was the one person I wanted to ring. The grandchildren he never got to meet.
I'm not telling you this so you'll feel sorry for me. I'm telling you because days like this have a way of making you honest.
Integrity starts with you
Last week I watched a Facebook Live from the coach Jairek Robbins, where he asked a simple question. What does integrity mean to you? And in particular, how honest are you with yourself?
I typed a quick answer in the comments. If you're not honest with yourself, you don't have much else.
For a long time I wasn't. I wore a mask and played a part, trying to be whoever I thought people wanted. The biggest change in my life over the years since has been getting to know who I actually am, and being straight with myself about it. Honest doesn't always mean happy. It means seeing things as they are. (I wrote more about that side of it in What is success?.)
Don't wait for the diagnosis
Here's what Dad's birthday always brings back to me. Too many of us wait until we're told we haven't got long before we start living properly. Three months. Six months. A year. Then suddenly we know exactly what matters.
Not everyone gets that warning. Dad barely did. One day you'll die, and nobody can tell you when. It's about the only thing in life that's guaranteed.
So live now, on purpose and honestly. Say the thing. Make the call you keep putting off till next year.
He'd have been 79
Writing this again in 2026, he'd have been 79. Two years before I first wrote this, I ran the race I'd watched him run when I was a boy, and kissed the medal for him at the finish. That story is in The year I ran my dad's race. It didn't fill the gap. It did remind me that the best way I've found to honour him is to use the time he didn't get.
First published June 2017.
