Father’s Day arrives this year on the longest day of the year. It is a coincidence of the calendar, but it feels like something more.
Across the world, the summer solstice is observed as The Longest Day, a symbol adopted by the Alzheimer’s community to represent the long journey of those living with the disease and those who love them. It also arrives during Alzheimer’s & Brain Awareness Month, a time dedicated to illuminating a condition that has touched millions of families and altered countless lives.
For me, the convergence feels deeply personal. Because this Father’s Day, I find myself thinking about memory. About fathers. About sons. About the obligations we inherit and the responsibilities we choose. About what remains when so much else begins to fade.
All I have ever wanted was to honor my family’s sacrifice and struggle.
Through every indignity and every triumph, through seasons of uncertainty and moments of profound exhaustion, purpose has fanned my flame. I have lived with the knowledge that my life rests upon sacrifices I did not make and hardships I did not endure. The least I can do is live in a manner worthy of them.
My father crossed an ocean so that I might cross a stage. He surrendered familiarity so that I might inherit possibility. He carried burdens so that mine might be lighter.
***
Like many children of immigrants, I grew up understanding that my opportunities were purchased by sacrifices I would never fully comprehend. My father left Cuba as a young man seeking freedom and a future. He arrived in a country that owed him nothing and spent a lifetime building a life that would make possible everything that followed.
If there is any measure of success in my life, it is not found in titles, appointments, recognitions or accomplishments. It is found in whether I have honored that gift.
My father need not be aggrandized in retrospect. In truth, he would likely abhor it. He has been flawed, as all of us are flawed. Stubborn at times. Wrong at times. Capable of misjudgment, impatience and contradiction. He is neither saint nor myth. He is a man. And that is precisely the point.
Too often, we honor those we love by sanding away the rough edges of their humanity. We transform them into symbols when what made them remarkable was that they were real.
My father’s life has not been extraordinary because he was perfect. It has been extraordinary because he persisted. Because he kept going when circumstances invited surrender. Because he carried responsibilities that often exceeded his resources. Because he loved imperfectly but steadfastly.
Like many men of his generation, he was raised in a world that often confused strength with silence and emotional restraint with resilience. Affection was not always spoken. Vulnerability was often concealed beneath duty. Love was communicated through sacrifice more often than through words.
Yet as I have grown older, and especially as I have wrestled with the blessings of fatherhood myself, I have come to understand that love has many dialects. My father’s was the language of provision. It was found in long hours, quiet sacrifices and burdens carried without complaint. It was found in opportunities created for others. In worries he absorbed so that his family would not have to. In a lifetime spent placing the needs of those he loved ahead of his own.
He may not always have possessed the vocabulary to express every feeling. But he spent a lifetime teaching me love through action.
***
Today, my father lives with Alzheimer’s disease. There is no way to adequately describe the heartbreak of watching someone you love slowly lose access to pieces of themselves. Alzheimer’s does not arrive all at once. It enters quietly. A forgotten detail. A misplaced name. A repeated story. Then, slowly and relentlessly, it asks families to adapt to losses both large and small.
You grieve while your loved one is still alive. You mourn in increments. You lose pieces of someone before you lose the whole. But Alzheimer’s has taught me something unexpected. The disease has stripped away the veneer. The careful reserve. The stoicism. The emotional armor worn by so many men of his generation.
Fatherhood has given me the gift of understanding him in ways that would have been impossible when I was young. It has also become the greatest blessing and responsibility of my own life.
Among all the titles I have held, all the positions I have occupied, all the honors and recognitions that have come my way, none has ever felt as consequential as hearing my children call me Daddy. Nothing else comes close.
Because fatherhood has taught me that our lives are measured differently than we imagine.
As a father, I often find myself standing between two worlds. Behind me stand my parents and abuelos — the generation shaped by exile, sacrifice, faith and perseverance. Before me stand my children — the beneficiaries of opportunities created by people whose names may one day be forgotten but whose sacrifices will remain woven into the fabric of their lives. Between those worlds, I have become a bridge. And I have chosen that responsibility willingly.
I tell my children the stories. About courage. About faith. About family. About community. About what it means to persevere. I tell them because memory is not merely an act of recollection. It is an act of stewardship.
I want them to know their abuelo not merely as a man living with Alzheimer’s disease, but as a son, a father, an immigrant and a dreamer. I want them to understand that the opportunities they enjoy today were purchased by sacrifices they may never fully comprehend. I want them to know where they come from. Not because the past should burden them, but because gratitude should ground them.
***
Alzheimer’s threatens memory. But it also reminds us how desperately important memory is. Not merely personal memory. Generational memory. Family memory. The stories that explain who we are and how we arrived here. The stories that become our inheritance. The stories that become our responsibility.
The day will come when my own time fades. The meetings will end. The speeches will be forgotten. The accomplishments will belong to history rather than memory. The accolades, the titles earned and bestowed, and even the history made will eventually become footnotes in a larger narrative about institutions, communities and the passage of time.
That is as it should be. What I hope endures is something simpler. I hope my children remember kindness. I hope they remember a father who tried, however imperfectly, to lead with compassion. I hope they remember that strength and tenderness are not opposites. I hope they remember that dignity belongs to every person. I hope they remember that love is not weakness but courage.
And when they think of me, I hope they understand that those lessons did not begin with me. I hope they know that their abuelo helped write them first. That behind whatever goodness they find in their father stands a man who taught him to persist when circumstances invited surrender. A man who taught him to shoulder indignities with grace. A man who taught him to love without regret. A man who, despite his imperfections and despite the limitations of his generation, gave his son a stubborn and enduring commitment to kindness.
If that is what remains, it will be enough. More than enough. For in the end, memory is not measured by what we achieved. It is measured by what we imparted. And if my children inherit kindness, then both Papi’s legacy and my own will endure long after our names are forgotten.
***
This story is not mine alone. Millions of American families are living some version of it right now. Across our nation, family caregivers are balancing careers, raising children, caring for aging parents, navigating medical systems, managing financial burdens and carrying emotional responsibilities that often remain invisible to everyone around them.
Caregiving is among the most important forms of leadership in our society. And it remains among the least supported. We can and must do better. We need greater investments in Alzheimer’s research. We need expanded respite care for caregivers. We need affordable long-term care solutions. We need workplace protections for those balancing employment and caregiving responsibilities. We need policies that recognize caregiving not as a private burden but as a public good. Because when caregivers collapse under the weight of impossible choices, entire families suffer. And when families suffer, communities suffer with them.
As daylight stretches across the longest day of the year, I find myself reflecting on a simple truth. The measure of a life is not ultimately found in what we accumulate. It is found in what we give away. My father gave away opportunities he never had so that I might have them. He gave away comfort so that I might know security.
Today, as I hold his hand more often than he holds mine, I understand that caregiving is not merely an act of obligation. It is gratitude made visible. It is love with its sleeves rolled up. And perhaps that is the final lesson my father continues to teach me. Alzheimer’s may take memories. It may alter conversations. It may change the contours of daily life. But it cannot erase the values that shaped us. It cannot diminish the sacrifices that built our families. It cannot extinguish the love that remains.
For in the end, the most enduring inheritance is not memory itself. It is love.
And if my children remember nothing else — if they remember only that their father tried to live with compassion, and that their abuelo taught him how — then that will be enough. More than enough. That will be the memory.
***
This Father’s Day, I also hope readers will support the organizations and professionals who walk alongside families confronting Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.
From the community-based support and advocacy offered by the Act Now Foundation in Union City and Alzheimer’s New Jersey, to the compassionate clinical care and social work provided by the Center for Memory Loss and Brain Health at Hackensack University Medical Center, these institutions help families navigate uncertainty with dignity, expertise and hope.
Their work reminds us that while no family can escape hardship, no family should have to face it alone.
Andrés Acebo is the President of New Jersey City University, which will become a part of Kean University on July 1.
