I was startled this morning when I read an email about someone remembering my dad, who died over 35 years ago:

"…in Boston last week, there was a conversation about old time calculators and early computers and some else there said….I used to know a man in Fort Wayne who could run an abacus faster than those early calculators…."

That person went on to name my dad. It is striking to me that across time and geographical distance, a memory could remain lodged within an individual, to be recalled at just the right moment.

Dad was sharp as a tack, ambitious, and could juggle work, family, and school (he went back to college in his forties) like no one else. As the saying goes, the apple does not fall far from the tree. The math genes run throughout my family, with brothers who went into the sciences and engineering and teenage sons who are taking AP calculus.

I had forgotten how capable Dad was, without the advantage of an education or a nurturing childhood. Or that he too, dreamed of being an entrepreneur, and running his own show. Over three decades later, I can trace my internal drive back to being my father's daughter. Things have turned out much better for me than it did for him.

Dad died when I was 13 years old.  Decades later, I'm still learning about him, and in an odd way, about myself.