Our Love Is Here To Stay

These are just my thoughts on one of the best people walking around on this earth. Since it's Valentine's, I think it's a good time to talk about someone I love. His name is Brian Gesch, also referred to as B-Money, and he is my dad.

Myself, Special-K, and B-Money all together on vacation

Here are some things that I've learned from my dad. Along the way I'll try and give you a little picture of who we're dealing with here:

#1 Be yourself, and be confident in who you are. My dad can't help but be himself. He is such a strong presence that everything he does is SO HIM. I used to get embarrassed of some of his tendencies in public, but now I love them. You know exactly who the guy is. He will ALWAYS be the loudest one singing in church. When he is in charge of making me dinner he will ALWAYS make a delicious steak for each of us cooked medium rare. He will ALWAYS ask every non-English speaker to teach him to say hello in their native language. He will ALWAYS say my mom is the most amazing person he knows. He will ALWAYS ask "May I bus your table?" and clear off the dishes when we have a family gathering. And he will ALWAYS cry at touching moments in movies, particularly in Old Yeller. He is, unapologetically, himself.

#2 Crank up the volume. This is specifically applied to the radio, but also metaphorically applied to life in general. Anytime you drive a vehicle after my dad was the last one at the wheel, when you turn on the car, you can bet money that you will be assaulted with a decibel level high enough for permanent hearing damage. He does this with good songs, the BBC radio for world news updates, and talk radio sessions on the 1130 AM channel in Milwaukee. I often make him mixed CD's for his birthdays and holidays of music I think he will like. I'll get many a voicemail of him singing along to a blasting Kelly Clarkson number or Cee-Lo Green's "Forget You" throughout my random school days. But everything he does is cranked up a few more notches than the average person. Have to be somewhere at 10:00? NOPE! My dad will do you one better and our whole family will be showing up at 9:15. Just to get a feel for the circumstances and to be punctual, for goodness sakes. I had 8 AM soccer games as a kid when I was the only girl on my team of boys and would show up a whole hour and fifteen minutes early. He and I were the only ones on the field, sitting at 6:45 in the morning with nothing to do. He would take that opportunity to make me do little drills by myself and practice sliding in mud so I was filthy and wet before the game even started. He said I had to do this because, well, "Then it shows you're not one of those weak girls who are afraid of getting a little dirty!" Like I said, in the Gesch family we have to turn it up a few notches. On everything.

#3 Live in loyalty to your principles. My dad is the most loyal person I have ever met, and I am not kidding. To everything. To my mom, to our family, to his parents, and to his principles of what is right and wrong. The guy isn't happy unless he is following all of those things. If he's in opposition to one of those, he's thrown completely out of whack. If he figures out he has done something against his principles, he apologizes and tries to get back to correct alignment. He has to do the right thing, or he can't stand himself. He has a fierce loyalty to the concept of SITUATIONAL AWARENESS and feels a deep obligation to inform me that I must use it at ALL times. Whenever I feel like I'm living in a world of gray, talking to my dad clears the lines a little bit. Talking with him reminds me that there is always a right thing to do and that I must just figure out what that is.

#4 Always say hello. This could be a piece of wisdom passed down first from my dad's father, Wilfred. My grandpa told me, "Anna, it doesn't cost anything to be friendly." My dad is the same way. I have often had to practice my handshake with my dad. When my family was assigned to be the greeters in church, I was thoroughly instructed to not give "dead fish" handshakes. "Look 'em in the eye, give a firm handshake, and say hello!" If there is a room full of people he already knows and ONE that he's never met, guess who is now conversing with Brian Gesch. Yep, the one. And if they're from a different country you get big time bonus points because now he can ask all about their trip and their lifestyle and their language and their religion. He just loves people. One time he met a guy from Cameroon. After a conversation the African guy ended up giving my dad the shirt he was wearing as a gift because my dad complimented him on it. The shirt looks hilarious but my dad cherishes it because he loved meeting that guy. That would only happen to him.

Of course, all this says volumes about my mom. My mom is the one behind the scenes that helps make my dad this great person that he is. She saw a guy in the 1970's with a white man's a-fro and chose instead to see a potential leader, husband, father, and teacher, and gave him a shot to fulfill all that unrealized possibility. She hangs with him through everything he does and gives our family the legs on which to stand up.

As for the title, this is a fabulous song of Frank Sinatra's (and many other singers, originally written by George Gershwin) that my dad and I both love to sing. And just like the song, I know that if the Rockies are crumbling, and Gibraltar is tumbling over, my dad will still be my dad. Brian Gesch will always be Brian Gesch, the same guy. And I love him for that.