Thoughts of My Father

As the anniversary of my father's death draws nearer I find myself thinking of him more.  Thinking how I have evolved in my thinking of our relationship, of his place in my life.  I'd like share some of those thoughts here.

The emotions, feelings and resulting self perception stemming from my early life and my father's death have more to do, I think, with me not having a father figure rather than me not having my father.  As I have touched on in earlier posts, my father really was not around a lot in my childhood and by the time I was six years old, he was dead.  By the time of his death, he and my mother had been married fourteen years.  And he was firmly in the grips of his alcoholism by then.

I can honestly say that I harbor no resentment, no bad feelings toward my father.  One would have to know someone personally, I think, to have feelings of disappointment and resentment and I really did not know him.  When I refer to my father, whether it be to a friend, my children or even my mother, it's always 'my father' not 'Daddy'.  Referring to him as Daddy just does not seem natural.  My mother, however, still refers to her father as 'Daddy' and always has.  She was a daddy's girl you see and she still speaks of him in revered tones.  Daddy.  That word comes out very awkwardly for me.

My father was absent either because he was hospitalized, because he was institutionalized or because he was on 'a trip'.  He went on 'trips' frequently apparently.  If he felt like taking off (and taking off usually meant back to sweet home Alabama) then he would up and go. And inform my mother later as to where he was.

My father was fighting demons I am sure.  His own childhood had been tumultuous.  He was fourth in a family of seven children.  His mother had contracted meningitis and died when he was nine years old.  Meningitis also claimed the life of his infant brother, James, and his little sister lost her hearing and the sight of one eye to the illness.

My grandfather, overwhelmed with the loss, left.  Up and left his six children leaving them to fend for themselves.  The oldest?  A daughter age thirteen.

I really have not been around my southern relatives all that much in my life so I don't know a lot of  the details but the ones I do know are heartbreaking.  In one infamous story, before social services intervened, the two oldest daughters had resorted to killing a hoot owl for food.  I guess my grandfather returned to the home but strangely his two sons were removed as was their little sister who lost her hearing.  She was placed in a special home for the deaf.  My father and his older (by one year) brother were placed together in a foster home.

That must have been devastating to them.  To lose their mother and then be separated from their father and sisters.  But from all outside recollections, the husband and wife who were their foster parents provided them with a stable home and upbringing.  The one negative that I did hear about was that at the age of ten my father was made to go down to the shanty town and collect the rent from the sharecroppers.  That must have been hard for a little white boy in the deep south in the 1930s.

As soon as they were able my father and his brother tried to enlist in the Navy.  My uncle finally wangled his way in at the very end of WWII, I think my grandfather signed for him or something.  My father bumped along for another year or so and finally joined up but the war had ended.

From what I can gather my father was a bit of a maverick.  I don't believe he was in the Navy for long.  He was the lowest of the low on ship...down in the boiler room...in the belly of the ship.  Conditions were not very good.  Actually, from what I have read about the subject, I tend to think that his resulting lung illness was a by product of the 'cake' that was used down below.

He was visiting my mother's next door neighbor.  That's how they met.  She was immediately smitten.  An avid child of the movies, she thought he looked like Montgomery Clift.  And proved to be just as tragic, unfortunately.

My father was very ethnic looking.  It is said that his mother was part American Indian.  My father was strikingly attractive with his olive skin, thick, black wavy hair and his gorgeous blue eyes fringed in black lashes of which any girl would have been envious.  He swept her off her feet I guess you could say.  My mother had zero dating experience.  Actually my mother only dated two men - my father and my stepfather - and married both of them.

Apparently my mother didn't fully know the breadth of his addiction until after they were married.  A bride at 21, it's my impression that things were never that great.  Seems like my father had a disdain for authority and all things structured.  Including marriage.  My mother said on the day he was honorably discharged from the Navy, he went straight to a department store, bought a new suit, and very unceremoniously dumped his naval uniform in a trash can out on the front sidewalk.

She said from the get go he had very little interest in furthering his education or his skills.  He bumped from job to job.  My mother was a true child of the Depression and job security was very important to her.  She had a secure job at the telephone company.  Thank goodness she had a job as she was, most often, the sole breadwinner.

From what I can tell their marriage was a cycle of my father's hospitalizations for various surgeries for his illness, his getting on - and falling off - the wagon, and his alcohol fueled or motivated shenanigans.

And he had some adventures.  Like when he took their beloved rat terrier with him on one of his tears.  He had a penchant for staying at a low life string of rent by the hour bungalows when he was on 'holiday'.  This one time his room caught fire and he and the dog jumped out the window and the dog disappeared.  My mother was distraught at the loss of the dog so she accompanied my father back to that place where they happily, miraculously, found the pup no worse for the wear, just a little singed.

Some of his adventures did not turn out favorably for him.  He was only 5'8" and slight in stature but mother was fond of saying he was like a little bantam rooster.  Lots of fight in him.  Unfortunately, he was indiscriminate with whom he picked a fight.  Mouthing off to a policeman got him backfisted - with a billy club - and cost him his two front teeth.  Devastating.  And pulling out the hammer he kept under the driver's seat in our car when he was pulled over by another policeman got him a night in jail.

Mother through all this was frazzled.  She was very shy to begin with and his over-the-top, gossip-inducing mishaps nearly pushed her over the edge.  One time, when I was an infant, my mother locked him out of our apartment.  He sat on the hood of our car and ALL NIGHT called out, moaning my mother's name.  All.night.

But the rare times he was sober, he was a dreamboat.  And honestly, he wasn't a nasty drunk.  He was just very, very irresponsible, undependable and reckless.  The big question is:  why did my mother stay with him?  I imagine it was because she knew if she left him then he would rapidly go down the tubes.

In my grief counseling class we learned that we are to refrain from using the popular phrase that all things happen for a reason.  The argument against is how can God willingly take a loved one from a little child?  I happen to believe that all things do happen for a higher calling.  In my family's case, my mother has often said living with my father had gotten so abysmal, so heartbreaking and taxing, that if he hadn't died, she surely would have.  Sad.

So getting back to the true point of this post, my relationship, or non-relationship as it were, with my father.  I may have written in a prior post that my mother really didn't talk to me about my father, about his death, or about how our life was going to be in those months and years when I was so small.  I remember NO comforting.  She was too wrecked.  And as the years passed when she did speak of him it was 95% of the time negative.

What I really would like to know is did he love me?  I mean, sure he probably felt something for me, I was his child.  But did he love me?   Rather than fault my father for his absences during our life together, I do have to admit that my mother has done NOTHING to convey to me that my father thought of me, loved me.  Not anything about how he acted when he first held me or if I made him laugh by doing any of the cute things babies invariably do.  I would just like something to know how he regarded me.  You'd think she could toss me a bone, wouldn't you??

The only hints at how he thought of me have been revealed sporadically over the years.  As I mentioned, my father spent a lot of time in rehab.  And while in rehab he did a lot of crafts.  He handhooked a rug with a swan on it.  It was colorful and looked like something to go in a child's room.  And my mother has a Lane cedar chest and in it once I saw about a dozen tiny little knitted hats and scarves.  My mother did say that my father made them for me.  And I can pretty definitely tell you that she never put them on me.

And then recently my mother did say that she had strict orders with my elementary school's office that I was not to be taken from the school by anyone but her and my aunt, her sister.  I found this very interesting that she even thought that my father would try and abscond with me.  Very interesting.

On a more pleasant note, I do have birthday cards that my father signed and that I hold so incredibly dear.  And I have the wallet he was carrying the night he died.  In it...my first grade picture.  Melt.