![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Father's Day
Jun. 15th, 2008 08:10 pmI was watching a tv show the other day, nothing important, but there was a scene that made me cry. A supporting character, a tough, forty-something, female attorney, was telling her mobster client that she missed her father - who'd died of cancer ages ago. She said, that she he was not an emotional man, not great at showing affection, but he had been her hero all the same. Her inspiration. She aspired to be like him. And regretted never quite getting the chance to tell him. During her little spiel, she also mentioned how no matter who we are, or how old, we all have issues with our fathers. Our father whether he is present or absent influences who we are. I can't really speak of other's father's, just my own. And this post is in some ways a tribute to him, even though he is still alive, because that's often the best time I think to do one.
One of my earliest memories of my father is a walk in the woods, his pipe perched precariously or so it seemed to me on his lips, the smoke spewing out, a warm musky scent that always makes me think of a campfire or a library, telling me a story. I don't remember his stories, but I do remember the walks, his pipe, and the trees taller than me. Sometimes he'd carry me on his shoulders or just carry me as we walked. A year ago I took a similar walk through the woods with my brother and his daughter, and it brought me back in time, much like my father, my brother told his daughter stories as they walked. And she looked at my brother in much the same way, I remember looking at my own father, with a complete and total trust. At that moment, I loved my brother more than I knew possible, because in him I saw my father. He looked at his daughter much the same way I've seen our father look at me and him.
Other memories that come to mind, if I sit and think on it, include a watercoloring class we took - my brother and I with my Dad on Saturdays, with a professional watercolor painter. Or the evenings he spent in his study typing stories, which never got published, because he put the day job first. The day job that made enough money to send my brother and I to college, to allow my brother to go to Rhode Island School of Design one summer, against his will, where he met his wife, or me to France to spend the summer with a French family in a foreign exchange program. My father tells me over and over again, that when one has a child, the world shifts, your perspective changes, it stops being about you, it becomes all about that child. When I was born, he tells me, his life changed, he no longer looked at the world in the same way.
He has also told me that children are gifts given into our care for a short period time, that the best thing we can do is let them go, and it is ultimately the hardest. An odd statement, considering how much he has had to support me since I passed the age of 25. And has done so willingly with little to no complaint.
My father was more successful in his career than I've ever been, but his success came late, around 44, and he'd given up on being the writer he dreamed of becoming to support his family. He'd taken a brief sabbatical at 40 to write a novel and attempted to get it published. After several rejections, he went back to his day job, compensation consultant, that required him to travel close to 65% of the time, to support his family.
He did not write again until he retired at the age of 58, and has now self-published five books and is working on a sixth, the proceeds, minimal at best, go to the Deep Well Foundation to feed the poor and hungry and disenfranchised in South Carolina. He makes no money off his books, he doesn't need more money, having invested well, so he writes for the love of it.
As a young man, my father traveled the 1960's and 1950's south with his African-American roommate, later he campaigned for Eugene McCarthy in riot torn Chicago at the height of 1968.
My father would not tolerate an anti-racist, anti-semtic, or misogynist comment in our house. Unlike many men I've known, my father did not own or look at Playboy, even though he was often told that he bore a close resemblance to Hugh Hefner. Tall and skinny, with pitch black hair, wire rimmed black glasses, and the ever present pipe - my mother told her parents way back when that he looked the most like Dennis the Menace's father. To my father, the pictures in playboy or pinups of women - showed a lack of respect for women. Objectified them. And he fond them distastful. But by the same token he did not believe he had the right to tell others what they should or should not do, he controlled himself, he would say, no one else.
When I began to tell stories to myself, my father bought me a type-writer. And he continues to support my writing, telling me that I can use his editor to get my most recent book in better shape, he can get me a discount. If it weren't for my father, I wonder if I would be driven to tell my own stories, or struggle to do the right thing, as opposed to the easy thing. My father taught me to never give up on my dreams, on my self, and to never betray myself or my values in pursuing them. My father taught me to honor human life, to respect others as I would have them respect me. And he has said more than once - that he did not care what I did with my life as long as I was happy and did not hurt anyone including myself. And how incredibly proud he was of me.
Don't get me wrong, my father is far from perfect. He snores. And he handles anger by screaming then leaving the room. It is difficult to win an argument with him. Also when it comes to money, he can be very tight - due to his own poor roots. Nor does he always handle emotion well - I call my Mom when I get upset, not my Dad. Plus he was not always available, on the road a lot for his job. And when it comes to sickness or hospitals - my Dad looks like a lost child, completely out of his element. I learned long ago how human he could be. But...
If there's anyone I aspire to be it is my father. Now 71 years of age, going on 72, with salt and pepper hair. He falls asleep on me all the time when I call him on the phone. Although, I remember him calling me the very next night to apologize and explain. Apparently 15 minutes is really all he has patience for. And he no longer hears so good. Nor, like most men I've met, is he that good with emotion and tears. But I remember at my grandmother, his mother's funeral, my father crying as his neice sang Amazing Grace, seeing the tears roll down his cheeks, I tentatively touched his hand with my own, and he grasped it, looked down at me and smiled with thanks. And I remember how I told my mother, insisted, that they allow my brother and I to attend, so we could be there for my father.
At that same funeral, I recall my brother telling me how we can't pick our relatives. And, if that's true, than I guess I was given a gift in my father. Because I could not have chosen a
better father myself.
With my Dad, I always knew that if anything horrible happened he'd be there for me. When I had to leave my job in 2002, without another one in place, my father got online and searched for jobs. Each time I was unemployed, he went online and spent hours hunting jobs on the internet for me. He reviewed my resume. He did what he could, even though he had no contacts or job he could give me himself. Without his support, I don't know how I would have gotten through those five or six years of hell. Even though it was long-distance.
My father will always be my father until I die. It is a relationship that is deeper than blood. And fortunately, or unfortunately, every man I met has to live up to his example.
I will always be proud to be my father's daughter.
Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there, whomever you may be.
For Father's Day: I gave my Dad, The Post-American World. It seemed fitting somehow. And called him this morning, the first words out of his mouth? How are you and how's work, then about my Mom. We didn't get to him until about ten minutes later.
One of my earliest memories of my father is a walk in the woods, his pipe perched precariously or so it seemed to me on his lips, the smoke spewing out, a warm musky scent that always makes me think of a campfire or a library, telling me a story. I don't remember his stories, but I do remember the walks, his pipe, and the trees taller than me. Sometimes he'd carry me on his shoulders or just carry me as we walked. A year ago I took a similar walk through the woods with my brother and his daughter, and it brought me back in time, much like my father, my brother told his daughter stories as they walked. And she looked at my brother in much the same way, I remember looking at my own father, with a complete and total trust. At that moment, I loved my brother more than I knew possible, because in him I saw my father. He looked at his daughter much the same way I've seen our father look at me and him.
Other memories that come to mind, if I sit and think on it, include a watercoloring class we took - my brother and I with my Dad on Saturdays, with a professional watercolor painter. Or the evenings he spent in his study typing stories, which never got published, because he put the day job first. The day job that made enough money to send my brother and I to college, to allow my brother to go to Rhode Island School of Design one summer, against his will, where he met his wife, or me to France to spend the summer with a French family in a foreign exchange program. My father tells me over and over again, that when one has a child, the world shifts, your perspective changes, it stops being about you, it becomes all about that child. When I was born, he tells me, his life changed, he no longer looked at the world in the same way.
He has also told me that children are gifts given into our care for a short period time, that the best thing we can do is let them go, and it is ultimately the hardest. An odd statement, considering how much he has had to support me since I passed the age of 25. And has done so willingly with little to no complaint.
My father was more successful in his career than I've ever been, but his success came late, around 44, and he'd given up on being the writer he dreamed of becoming to support his family. He'd taken a brief sabbatical at 40 to write a novel and attempted to get it published. After several rejections, he went back to his day job, compensation consultant, that required him to travel close to 65% of the time, to support his family.
He did not write again until he retired at the age of 58, and has now self-published five books and is working on a sixth, the proceeds, minimal at best, go to the Deep Well Foundation to feed the poor and hungry and disenfranchised in South Carolina. He makes no money off his books, he doesn't need more money, having invested well, so he writes for the love of it.
As a young man, my father traveled the 1960's and 1950's south with his African-American roommate, later he campaigned for Eugene McCarthy in riot torn Chicago at the height of 1968.
My father would not tolerate an anti-racist, anti-semtic, or misogynist comment in our house. Unlike many men I've known, my father did not own or look at Playboy, even though he was often told that he bore a close resemblance to Hugh Hefner. Tall and skinny, with pitch black hair, wire rimmed black glasses, and the ever present pipe - my mother told her parents way back when that he looked the most like Dennis the Menace's father. To my father, the pictures in playboy or pinups of women - showed a lack of respect for women. Objectified them. And he fond them distastful. But by the same token he did not believe he had the right to tell others what they should or should not do, he controlled himself, he would say, no one else.
When I began to tell stories to myself, my father bought me a type-writer. And he continues to support my writing, telling me that I can use his editor to get my most recent book in better shape, he can get me a discount. If it weren't for my father, I wonder if I would be driven to tell my own stories, or struggle to do the right thing, as opposed to the easy thing. My father taught me to never give up on my dreams, on my self, and to never betray myself or my values in pursuing them. My father taught me to honor human life, to respect others as I would have them respect me. And he has said more than once - that he did not care what I did with my life as long as I was happy and did not hurt anyone including myself. And how incredibly proud he was of me.
Don't get me wrong, my father is far from perfect. He snores. And he handles anger by screaming then leaving the room. It is difficult to win an argument with him. Also when it comes to money, he can be very tight - due to his own poor roots. Nor does he always handle emotion well - I call my Mom when I get upset, not my Dad. Plus he was not always available, on the road a lot for his job. And when it comes to sickness or hospitals - my Dad looks like a lost child, completely out of his element. I learned long ago how human he could be. But...
If there's anyone I aspire to be it is my father. Now 71 years of age, going on 72, with salt and pepper hair. He falls asleep on me all the time when I call him on the phone. Although, I remember him calling me the very next night to apologize and explain. Apparently 15 minutes is really all he has patience for. And he no longer hears so good. Nor, like most men I've met, is he that good with emotion and tears. But I remember at my grandmother, his mother's funeral, my father crying as his neice sang Amazing Grace, seeing the tears roll down his cheeks, I tentatively touched his hand with my own, and he grasped it, looked down at me and smiled with thanks. And I remember how I told my mother, insisted, that they allow my brother and I to attend, so we could be there for my father.
At that same funeral, I recall my brother telling me how we can't pick our relatives. And, if that's true, than I guess I was given a gift in my father. Because I could not have chosen a
better father myself.
With my Dad, I always knew that if anything horrible happened he'd be there for me. When I had to leave my job in 2002, without another one in place, my father got online and searched for jobs. Each time I was unemployed, he went online and spent hours hunting jobs on the internet for me. He reviewed my resume. He did what he could, even though he had no contacts or job he could give me himself. Without his support, I don't know how I would have gotten through those five or six years of hell. Even though it was long-distance.
My father will always be my father until I die. It is a relationship that is deeper than blood. And fortunately, or unfortunately, every man I met has to live up to his example.
I will always be proud to be my father's daughter.
Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there, whomever you may be.
For Father's Day: I gave my Dad, The Post-American World. It seemed fitting somehow. And called him this morning, the first words out of his mouth? How are you and how's work, then about my Mom. We didn't get to him until about ten minutes later.