I wrote this a really long time ago in the belief that if I could somehow name the dread/fear that haunted me it would somehow hold less power over my life.
That, as it turned out was either wishful thinking or abject bullshit.
It's said the child is father to the man-sometimes that's not all that's fathered.
Happy Birthday, Dad.
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| The Birthday Boy |
I don't ever remember celebrating my father's birthday as I grew up. Logic dictates we, our mother (his wife) and my brothers and sisters (his children) must have done so as we did for everyone in our family, and yet every year I struggle and fail to find a single memory of a single moment of that day.
I mention all of this because had he lived, today would have been his one-hundredth birthday (he died forty-two years ago) and I'd like to think that now he would be something I never felt he was while we shared the earth, proud of something, anything, I'd ever done.
Except even in this case, as was so true in our shared lives, I would be cheating (oh so slightly) as I'd hope he'd be proud of his grandchildren, Patrick and Michelle, who are my wife, Sigrid, and my children.
My most lasting memory of my father isn't really a memory of him at all, but a reminder of how life goes on within you and without you. Many years ago while shopping, Sigrid found what she assured me was 'the perfect card for you to send to your dad for Father's Day.'
I don't remember the card, though this would be a better lesson for me if I had, but I signed it, after Sigrid had addressed it, put a stamp on it, and had me throw it in my work bag. And that's where the card stayed.
Months later, and well past Father's Day, she was rooting through my bag, in search of something I had promised to bring home but had misplaced. Her theory, more often right was that whatever it was, it could be found in my bag. The body of Jimmy Hoffa, the other gunmen on the grassy knoll, Weapons of Mass Destruction--check in the bag.
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| Dad in his classroom |
What she found that day, and registered a quiet note of disappointment with me because of it, was the card we both thought I had mailed months earlier for Father's Day. Faced with the reality that I hadn't, all I could do was to mumble a promise to do so 'next year'.
You've guessed, of course, that my father died before 'next year' ever happened. As a self-centered oldest child, stiff-necked and incapable of bending, I had clashed with my father nearly every day of my life. I think from the time I could talk, all I said to him was 'no.'
I don't recall what we fought about or why, but they were bitter arguments, often ending in physical contact that made me more fully appreciate the weight of his hands, but I refused to yield anything at any time and we passed months, if not years, exchanging as few words as possible for as long as possible. I had wished him the worst countless times, and when notified by the Red Cross (I was in the Air Force) that he was dead, my first reaction was overwhelming guilt.
We, the three oldest children had moved out and away, but our three youngest, two sisters and a brother, were left to be raised by our mother in circumstances vastly different from ours when were their ages and I made no effort to ever learn or to attempt to mitigate or improve.
I've never spoken to them about those years and know I'll never do so. More casualties in a war that should have ended decades ago, but continues even as I type this and feel the gorge rise in my veins as if "enough" weren't already, and finally, truly enough.
I am, like it or not, my father's son in ways neither of us could have ever seen or imagined. Perhaps he'd be proud of that, and yet I truly hope not.
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| Photo by Sigrid Kenny |
Life is a sum of all your moments--waking and dreaming; everything you've done or left undone; every word, said and unsaid, and of all your prayers, answered but, most especially and finally, those unanswered.-bill kenny
