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JUNE 2020
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His Challenges Helped Bring Me Here Today
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At the time this article is written, we’re all still trying to do our best to work from home and adjust to the new normal. Part of that includes finding new ways to celebrate special events and holidays. In April, families celebrated Easter through Zoom or Skype instead of getting together for Easter dinner. People also found new ways to celebrate birthdays that both honored the person and kept them safe. We’re hoping that by the time June comes around, things will have eased up a bit to allow us to get together and celebrate, but we’re not really sure. We might have to continue celebrating birthdays and Father’s Day from afar. My family has celebrated Father’s Day the same way for the past several years. Usually, my parents split the year: Half of the time, they live in their home in Scottsdale, Arizona, and the other half, they’re in Omaha, Nebraska. Back in March, they were in Arizona and would usually be back in Omaha before June to beat the heat. That’s where my husband and I have a joint celebration with my dad for Father’s Day. We either go up there or my dad comes down to visit us. But because of COVID-19, they’ve had to stay in Arizona longer than they would normally. I don’t think we’ll have the chance to meet up with Dad this year, which is a bummer, but we’ll still try to celebrate the best way we can. We’ll FaceTime with them, and I’ll send a gift. My dad is admittedly really hard to shop for, but with the help of my husband, Tom, or my brother, we always manage to come up with some good gift ideas for him. Before he retired, my dad had a very long career. He worked at several companies, starting as a bank teller and climbing his way up to management. He shared his wealth of experience with me so I could succeed as I pursued my own career. Dad always pushed me to do something challenging. His job provided him with many challenges, whether it was managing people, finding ways to climb to the next level, doing the next best thing, or improving along the way. In the same way, he encouraged me to do something similar, even when I was young. As a kid, I was always shy. In school, I was terrified of doing many extracurricular activities because it meant I had to socialize with other people. One of those included debate,
which I knew my dad really wanted me to join, and I regret not going
through with it. But fortunately, I did have the debate class experience by debating with my dad. In a way, he was my debate coach. We would spend a lot of our time just arguing about random topics, and he would always say, “Chelsea, you should really do debate. You’re really good at arguing.” Not to brag too much, but I did win all of them, which, as a teenager at the time, I’m sure was fun for him. When I graduated high school and continued on into college, I hesitated to pursue law. Even though I was interested in that subject, I was still a little fearful and shy to do the whole debate thing with anyone other than my dad. I actually didn’t decide I wanted to become an attorney until right after undergrad. What got me to that point was my dad pushing me to do something more challenging. I was a journalism major and was looking into marketing and newspaper writing, but he could tell that wasn’t challenging enough for me. It wasn’t up to my capabilities, and he encouraged me to find something that was. I remember we had a conversation when I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do and mentioned I was interested in law school. He said, “Look, you know, obviously, it’s a lot of school and a big investment. However, that’s going to be the best choice because that’s the only thing you have a good long-term path with. That’s the thing that’s going to pay dividends years and years from now that you can rely on for the rest of your life.” That encouragement helped make my choice a little easier, that I could follow my interest and lead a great life. I don’t think I would be where I am right now if it weren’t for my dad pushing me to realize my full potential and not just settle for something that would have been easy. Dad has always been extremely supportive of me; of anyone in the
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world, he has the most confidence in me. I’m so grateful for everything he’s done for me. And that’s how I know we’ll get through this challenging time together. We have each other’s backs — always.
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–Chelsea Dickerson
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