My father was born on this day in 1905. Over the years of my own adulthood and middle age I've seen so much of my father in my own mannerisms of body and speech, and yet he remains largely an unknown man to me. That is, though I perhaps knew him as well as most men know their fathers, I feel that there's more about him that I don't know and never even suspected than that I did come to know.
Somehow, beginning as a bookish teenager, I felt there was a kind of divide between him and me, a division that afforded me much grief of longing, particularly during my late twenties and my thirties, when my own children were young. I felt a mysterious need to connect with my dad, to somehow get on the same wavelength of understanding and feeling. It's hard to define what the "connection" would have been, or exactly what was missing that I thought needed to be there. I never felt that the connection got made or the missing parts got filled in. At some point in the final years of his life (1976-1980) I accepted that they never would. I even convinced myself that that was okay, even though I don't really think it was.
Could it have been a simple failure to really know that he loved me, or a failure on my part to really appreciate him, to understand to what extent his life had consisted of pleasure, to what extent of pain? He grew up the oldest child of a large family. At an age when I was reading books, attending school everyday, preparing for college, he was working a mule in the fields (in Arkansas) to help feed his brothers and sisters. That is, he didn't have my "advantages," and ironically it was probably those very advantages that constituted the gulf that I felt divided us. My so-called advantages pushed me into a world more of the mind and the imagination than of everyday, present reality.
Anyway, Dad, I just wanted to tell you again, as I did my best to tell you almost thirty years ago, that I love you. I still love and always will love you, even if my understanding of you was imperfect and my memory of you is at best an approximation of who you really were. And thanks again for everything.
A very insightful, heartfelt post, Moristotle, and on a theme I often think about.
ReplyDeleteI am very fortunate as regards a relationship with my father. When he was raising kids, though we were in the same house, our worlds and challenges and responsibilities were almost too different to bond closely. When I was raising my kids....well, now it was my turn to be too distracted. But now that everyone is out of both houses (except Mrs Sheepandgoats, of course) we spend quite a bit of time together. I drive with him a lot. (to Rhinebeck where he visits his sister Violet in the nursing home) Along with my brother, we frequently get together to bowl. At 85 he still has an average not far removed from 200. I, on the other hand, had not bowled in years until we began our visiting phase, and probably will not pick up a ball again after he is gone. He clobbers me every time. Then the three of us go out to eat, then to one of our houses to play Scrabble. Sheepandgoats are extremely boring and predictable. Our routine never varies.
That's my father. My mother, however, more closely fits the pattern you describe with your dad. She died after a lenghthy illness and before we had much of that "window" in which to get to know each other intimately.
I miss her.
Was good to read your thoughts on
ReplyDeletehim. I never got to know him and
until the last couple of years didn't realize what a shame that was.
He did have a sense of humor, loved
baseball I'll always remember that
about him.
Tom, I think your time with your Dad
and brother sound wonderful not boring at all.
Dawn