I was operating on multiple tracks. One, communicating with the public to keep them informed and calm. Two, revamping the government to functionally perform the incredible tasks of building hospitals, creating testing capacity, and finding medical staff, ventilators, and PPE. Three, dealing with the federal government—not an easy task. And four, personally confronting the stress, pain, and death all around me.
—
FOR THE FIRST TIME in a long time, all three of my daughters were in Albany with me. Michaela would finish her classes online and, like so many other seniors, miss out on graduation festivities. My daughters are young, tech savvy, and cool and often tease me about being out of date. They would tell me, Dad, this tweet could be better, or give me advice about how to communicate with people their age. They would say, “This picture would be a great ‘latergram.’ ” I still do not know what that means. So I asked Mimi Reisner, my social media and messaging guru, to make them part of the social media effort, helping to communicate the information and connect with people who don’t normally engage with government. Having them around grounded me and gave me comfort, reminding me what’s important in life and how meaningless so many things become when faced with grave danger. At dinner each night, I’d ask them what they did that day, but what I meant was, what did they think of the day’s briefing?
As anyone watching the briefings knew, Mariah wouldn’t come to Albany without him: the Boyfriend. I begrudgingly agreed that the Boyfriend could come. The Executive Mansion has twelve bedrooms, and he got the one on the top floor with the twin bed everyone says is haunted. I assure you, that was a coincidence. The Boyfriend, who shall remain nameless unless and until the relationship proceeds to an impending formal status, is a genuinely nice and talented fellow. He is a gentleman, which I cannot say for all boyfriends. Luckily, my daughters have an overprotective dad. They don’t always believe that it is lucky for them. But sometimes dads just know best.
Cara worked on finding PPE to purchase for the state, calling all over the world. Michaela worked on organizing mental health providers and setting up a hotline that provided mental health counseling and support services. Mariah worked on social media and video advertising to encourage wearing masks and social distancing.
In the normal course of life, my girls would never have spent weeks with their old man in Albany. After this crisis I am sure they never will again. They are birds who have flown from the nest with much to do. I see myself in them all the time. It seems life repeats itself.
What I wouldn’t give to be able to sit at home with my old man for just one more day. To have him back, hear his voice, touch his face, and hold his hand. We lost him six years ago. He was ill and debilitated, and his quality of life had degenerated. In many ways he just didn’t want to go on. I told him how important it was for him to stay alive and how much we all needed him, and he scoffed at my argument. So I resorted to making it personal. I told him I was several weeks away from Inauguration Day for my second term and I needed him to help me work on the speech. But he was too smart for me, and he rejected that, saying that he would be there for his son, to hear my inauguration speech. I looked at him and I said, do you promise? He looked at me and he said he promised. My father never broke a promise to me, nor I to him. January 1 was the day of my inauguration. I gave the speech, and he heard it over the telephone. One hour after the speech he passed away. True to his promise, always.
Since he died, when I have a special or difficult day, I wear my father’s shoes: literally! It sounds ridiculous I know. My father wasn’t a material person and we didn’t have many objects to remember him by after his death, but he loved shoes and I wear the same size as he did. My mother gave me my pick. My father’s love of his shoes stemmed from his growing up during the Great Depression era, when shoes were precious, so he bought quality shoes and took excellent care of them. I once heard my father talking to Harry Belafonte about how they shined their shoes, and the method was so intricate that it sounded absurd. My father shined his own shoes on a weekly basis. As a kid, I would help him. He would explain the process to me: saddle soap first, then mink oil, then regular polish, and then neutral polish; brushed and buffed and only cedar shoe trees, of course. Plastic shoe forms were for amateurs. My daughters were particularly fascinated with the “filling your father’s shoes” psychological angle, but I wanted them to know how important he was to me and how much comfort I still take in feeling that he is with me. I only hope that my daughters can get that sense of comfort from me when I’m gone. It’s said that “the spirit” lives. I believe it does. I am not sure my father would support everything I do in his shoes, but he
