I begin with a memory... my father comes home to his "darling girl", presents me with chocolates, and swears to quit drinking and smoking just for me.
And then, again, my father... tucking all his four children to bed. We are begging him for his stories and he relents, beginning this much-anticipated ritual with a refrain from a forgotten Spanish song: "Istoria de un amor codomo..."
It is startling to me that the only recollections that I have, as a child, of being singularly loved and cared for were both memories of my father.
And then, another memory from when I was older---probably in my early teens: I was leaving the house and tried to kiss my father on the cheek for the first time to say goodbye. He turned his face away. I did not quite understand why he did so. Was the idea of a daughter kissing his father alien to him? Was that expression of love lost to this father? That single incident has since left a scar: symbolic of that first stab of a man's rejection, even worst that it came from my father.
Decades pass... I come home to my father's wake and funeral to find that I had no tears. The well in my heart that held my tears was dry. I had lost the man who loved me first long before his passing... and today, his once-darling girl speaks,
the one who is hounded by her memories of a father that was, and was no more,
of a love that was hers and then was lost...
this child who self-describes as
the child,
the child that was orphaned,
orphaned by her father
long before he died.
Who was my father?
He always referred to himself as the "black sheep", or was it my grandmother who called him that? He was the only one of seven siblings who did not graduate from college. He married my mother when she was 19 and he was 27. The whole time before he was married and after he quit college, I do not know what he was doing, if he was ever employed.
He was always drinking. It was something that he steadily did, unlike smoking, which many times he had tried to quit. I believe he got a job as a messenger/janitor at the big sugar mill company in our town shortly after he and my mother were married. It became a habit of his to come home from work drunk, with that glazed look in his eyes and the alcohol breath I have come to dislike so much even until now. The only times he would be speaking was when he was drinking. Otherwise, he was quiet and distant and detached from us.
When my father was sober, he was always working around the house, scraping pots and pans, and buckets until they were spotless. He would clean the bathrooms and the floors and the kitchen sink until they glistened and even indulged in planting vegetables and such. When he was done with these, he would go in the back of the house, and with a stick write on the ground lyrics to songs, or poems. He also wrote them on pieces of paper in beautiful cursive. I imagine he was a romantic, like I am.
My father rarely went to my school affairs. It was always my mother who ran the household, took care of us kids, and bore the burden of making ends meets when my father squandered away his paycheck in gambling or drinking.
As a child, I lived in the constant fear of my father dying and going to hell. At that time, he was the only one in my family who did not go to our church. I decided, after months of praying, to evangelize him. It was a futile effort,ending with me in tears, and him, still stoic and unrelenting. He just wanted to be left alone.
Early on, even until adulthood, I had this fear and shame. Fear of people who would mention my father to me thinking they might say they found him drunk somewhere or lying in a ditch. And shame to be seen with him in public in his drunken state, with the glazed look, the alcohol breath and the slurred speech.
My relationship with my father was marked by a distance,
a coldness,
a not-speaking.
He was there,
but never there.
I ask myself now,
now that he is long gone,
whether I could have done more than just left him to himself?
Or was it my fault that he left me?
Maybe, my resentment was so transparent it drove him away?
Maybe, I did not love him enough,
or worse,
Maybe, I did not love him at all?
Maybe, I have not forgiven him?
Maybe, I needed to forgive him first, before I could love him?
"How do we forgive
our Fathers?
Maybe in a dream
Do we forgive our
Fathers for leaving us too often or forever
when we were little?
Maybe for scaring us
with unexpected rage
or making us nervous
because there never
seemed to be any rage there at all.
...
And shall we forgive
them for their excesses of warmth or coldness?
Shall we forgive
them for pushing or leaning
for shutting doors
for speaking through
walls
or never speaking
or never being
silent?"*
WHO, really, is my father?
Maybe, that is the question I should have asked first.
Who was he before alcohol, and all the other demons in his head gagged him and bound him and took him away?
WHERE is my father?
The one who once, so loved that little girl
it has been stamped in her memory forever.
Where was he?
He was IN THERE waiting,
waiting,
throughout all those years
waiting
to be forgiven,
waiting
to be set free.
"Do we forgive our Fathers in our age or in theirs
or in their deaths
saying it to them or not saying it?
If we forgive our Fathers what is left?"*
"How Do We Forgive Our Fathers?" by Dick Lourie
"How Do We Forgive Our Fathers?" by Dick Lourie
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