As father day approaches,
several things come to mind. Obviously,
we all have dads. It is a universal
experience of sort, yet one profoundly personal. My goal is to share a little
bit of my story in hopes that it resonates with you and I hope I get the chance
to hear some of your story.
Most of you know I have a
daughter, and now I have a grandson. It is wondrous to watch the, isn’t
it. They are so curious. And full of life, and energy. At times, they are seemingly invincible.
They soak up knowledge and
skills, thoughts, dreams, plans, and hopes to someday change the world. I’m willing to bet you were like that as a
kid. I think I was. I believe it is universal. And logically, I must deduce that my father
was like that to.
All of our fathers were born like that.
Have your beliefs about your
father changed over time? Mine
have. My daughter’s beliefs have changed
about me. I’m not nearly as big a jerk
as I was when she was in 8th grade.
How I’ve changed! I’ve grown up
so much these last few years.
I think beliefs about dads
can change. Let’s say for example that
we could gently bring our fathers back from time, when they were healthy, and
when they were fulfilled that role of dad.
We could line them up and without them knowing it, rate them from poor
to excellent.
Where would your dad be in
the line? How well did he live up to
your fantasy? Was he a Ward Cleaver, or
a Father Knows Best kind of dad, someone more like the character in “Oliver”
known as Fagin - A conniving career criminal that takes in
homeless children and trains them to pick pockets for him.
One can philosophize about
how we ended up in the family we did with the parents we had. I used to resent it. After all, my dad was pretty grumpy, seemed
pretty miserable with his life. Is your
memory one filled with happy images. Maybe you were one of those that couldn’t
wait to move out of the house to get away from him.
My siblings tell stories of
a strong man that parachuted into Normandy and saw the war’s end.
He came home to work and
raised a family. He loved his kids deeply. He had a passion for music. He lived his earlier years with gusto, playing
piano, trumpet and even singing in the choir at St. John’s Cathedral in
downtown Cleveland.
Despite his passion for music, his sense of responsibility
was greater.
He was a police reporter for
the Cleveland Plain Dealer, not one of the beats where you witnessed lots of
life affirming beauty day after day. On
weekends, when he wasn’t gardening, he played tennis, or racquet ball with
passion.
And speaking of passion, he
with his young bride, named Marie, and a devout Catholic, had seven kids to
feed by the time he was 30 years of age.
My mom told me that the first ten years of their marriage was one
continuous honeymoon.
I was the baby of those
seven kids. I had a few good years with
my dad early on but without going into detail, things went south for him when I
was in grade school.
He battled with demons of depression,
alcoholism and consequences of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. His health declined and was in and out of the
hospital a lot for the last couple of years.
Maybe so it would be easy to remember, he died on ground hog’s day, never
to see his shadow again. He was 47. I was 16.
My mother and my siblings breathed a sigh of relief that his misery was
over, and we could get on with our lives.
Twenty years later, we
decided to have a memorial service for him.
It took twenty years for all of my siblings and my mom to heal, to
forget, and to forgive. During that
time, three brothers became sober. We all
got counseling. We had grown enough,
that upon looking back, we could see, and appreciate a different father.
Despite not being very close
to my dad, I choose to think of him in this light. He, like all of us, came into the world full
of vim and vigor, and strived to reach his potential: creative, physical, and
emotional. Along the way, he took his
share of hits. Maybe the horrors of war
haunted him, for he never spoke of it.
Maybe his overriding sense
of responsibility to his family left little room to explore his passion for writing
and musical. Maybe the lack of resources
deprived him of treatment for his emotional ills and addictive
personality.
I am convinced I could not
do any better if I had been in his shoes.
This father’s day, I’m
thankful to him. I’ve gotten more gentle in my criticism. He provided good European DNA, perfect for manual
labor and endurance sports. He made lots of good choices, like marrying my mom. He provided for his family. I’m a lot like him I think. I love to garden, shoot pool, and play racquet
ball. I even like writing. Maybe someday
I’ll learn to sing and play an instrument.
In reality, he was just what I needed to launch me into the life I have.
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