My Dad was mostly a “mellow fellow”. He was not so much an expressive type, but more he was likely a bit like I am – social, but not overly extroverted. Sometimes we could sit and not talk, but just have bits of conversations – remarking about this or that, or maybe one of us would ask a question and wait for the answer, then discuss maybe a little, or maybe a lot.
He would try to persuade me when we did not see eye to eye, but he did not ever force me to have his opinion – but there would be times that he would remind me of our differences, especially when we bought a new car, once, when he thought we should not have spent the money on it. But, it was okay in the end – and we did not spend his money on it, so he lived with it.
There were those times when I was small, when I disobeyed – and it meant that he had to do something to let me know that I had not done the right thing. I remember feeling confused because it was clear that he did not want to discipline me – that was my Mom’s job – but she was away, so he had to do this, and later, I thought it was rather comical. I do remember him saying that he didn’t like this, but it was “for my own good.” I also remember thinking, “Well, how about not doing anything, because that would be good!” As I said, I was likely too young to see the bigger picture.
We were on car trips more than once. I remember that he gave me a Coca-Cola with peanuts poured down into the liquid – something that my Dad used to have as a quick lunch that he could consume while driving from point A to point B. That was fun, and of course not very normal – my Mom was a 3 meal a day person – so, my lunch was usually some sort of square meal, not peanuts and pop!
My Dad bought me my first puppy. Her name was “Bell”. She was a cute little bird dog pup, but she ran away. That taught me a good bit about loss. The next dog he brought home was a beagle named “Peaches” who was given to my Dad by someone who could not take care of her anymore. She became my buddy and was for years. She ran away and came back many times. My Dad taught me about dogs having puppies, and let us watch the birth of her first litter. It was all pretty cool.
He taught me to play golf (sort of). He tried to teach me to play tennis, but I was hopeless! He was a tennis and a basketball star in high school and in college. I still have his medals.
My Dad could fix almost anything. He was the dependable one in my life – the source of my strength – the one who could make sure that stuff would be okay.
It was later, once I was out of the house that those things that went wrong were not always what he could help fix, but he was there, nonetheless, as that solid force on which I could lean, or cry, or that one person to whom I could tell most of my troubles. He would lift me up and palm me a $50 and say, “Don’t tell your Mother…”, and I would save that for the rainiest of my rainy days, or spend it on my kids… It gave me a sense of security that I could get somewhere if I had to…
I miss my Dad something terrible some days. I feel like that his last months of life were more like his being in a state where he could not be himself. He kept telling me that I needed to come and see them more, but I was busy trying to make a living and raise my kids, and deal with a terrible marriage situation that I kept from my Dad, for whatever reason I had at the time — and that made it worse — I probably should have told him, and he probably knew and suspected that things were not right, but “water under the bridge”.
My Dad died in July of 2000. He did not witness some of the extreme horrors that we have had in the world since that time. In some ways, I am grateful. In other ways, I wish he had been there to give us perspective. He was a survivor of The Depression, and lived through World War II. Likely, he could have said a few things to calm our shock and our fears. We will not ever know.
My Mom was heartbroken and never fully recovered from his death. Me, I had to be strong for everyone else. I probably did not give it a proper “grievin'” until the year 2013, when I quit my job and had two months off to think, and to unpack the boxes that revealed many things to me about my Dad and his later years.
He was absolutely resistant to losing control – and it was apparent, that he felt that he could keep everything in order for the both of them, especially since my Mom was constantly changing her mind, chasing her happy place that I believe she never found. In reality, the “unhappyness” was inside, not in some illusive place that they would ever find.
The Dylan Thomas poem, Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night was my Dad’s approach to letting go of life. He did not want to go, and he wouldn’t as long as he was consciously able to resist. He held on as long as he could. It was not pretty.
His dying words to me were, “Take care of your Mother.”. Mom never was the rock – yet she tried to be one of sorts, much later. She provided a different type of support to most of us – but this was not always a good thing for some. We cannot turn back the pages to reset the course of our lives. This is fact.
As I get older, I understand more about what Dad was going through at the time, the last years of his life. I understand how much I am like him in some ways, and yet in some ways, I likely have some Mom in me, too, naturally. That is genetics.
But I can say for sure that my Dad was the best Dad ever – he was devoted, protective, and loyal – and he loved me and took great care of me from the day I was conceived to the maximum extent that he could for the rest of his life.
Dad came from good folks with solid roots, and he gave that to me. It was a wonderful gift. It is my point of reference – in essence my “bearing point” for all that I encounter. It is a “what would Sonny have done?” question that I ask myself when difficult things happen where I must contemplate what to do.
