Sunday, September 28, 2008
Sins of My Father (Part One)
TYING UP LOOSE ENDS (INTRO)
Back in late June when I traveled to Oklahoma City to be with my family and father in what were his last days, I wrote daily about his condition as well as my thoughts and reactions to what was going on. What started out as something informational for concerned friends became the most cathartic exercise of my life.
While a lot has changed since returning to life after his death, so much feels so unresolved and unhandled with regard to my father. I initially had a couple dreams about him. Those dreams felt significant at the time and did provide me with some measure of peace regarding him and the decisions my family and I made with regard to his care.
Most of what you’ll read moving forward may be very private and vulnerable feelings, thoughts or actions. Feeling trapped by my dad’s reality and my own human condition, I am venturing out on what I hope is another cathartic venture and sort through what I see and have seen as well as what I feel and have felt.
As I set out on this journey a close friend is entering into the last days of his father’s life. Listening to his updates on his dad’s condition and state put into greater perspective the fragility of life and our emotional vulnerability to the mortality of those we love and hurt the most.
What you will read is basically the perceptions of a child and teenager. I have purposely not fact checked timelines and dates. While the memories are real, I wanted to maintain the integrity of what were my perceptions at the time and as I grew.
I hope that I will ultimately understand my father better and understand in what ways I am not like him. Though sweet and caring, my quest moving forward is to not be like him. His brokenness casts a shadow that follows me. If I am even remotely broken I want to start the process of repair and personal reconciliation.
So, here goes:
My dad died on June 29th. I’ve thought of him countless times since then. I was surprised by the regret that crept into my consciousness with regard to my father. I felt a surface guilt that I can’t quite shake. I certainly don’t feel responsible for his physical demise or the way that he left this world. Everyone involved played a part in making certain that his last days and moments were as comfortable as possible.
My regret is centered on the slight stroke of my right thumb on more than a few occasions in the year or so before he died. My careless, self-absorbed move robbed my father of a few minutes or an hour or perhaps a day of feeling special. I rejected him, if only for a moment, but in the final hours of a loved one’s life, a moment is priceless.
In the year and a half or so before his death, my dad called me once or twice a week. Talking to him was never a quick thing. Entering into a phone conversation with my father was an investment of time and energy. Our conversations had a predictable flow. We’d start with an exchange of pleasantries, “how are things?” “how is work?” Then we would move into a series of sports topics for the meat of the conversation. Then would come the politics portion – especially over the last year or so. He would almost always launch into a rant about how conservative and racially insensitive the people in Oklahoma were. Something I have never experienced in my numerous visits there. I think he just hated living in a ‘red state’ and this was his way of lashing out. He almost always had a long, dramatically embellished story about a neighbor or a child who supposedly said something so racist that it sounded like something out of Selma lunch counter in the late 1950s. There were always references to a precious sentimentality to which he clung from his past. It would often involve the valor of my grandfather or the philosophical and moral conviction of my grandmother. They were his heroes as well as his parents.
We would almost always begin the wind down of any phone conversation with a more sincere exchange of “so, how are things going?” and “how are the girls”. Then he would tell me he loved me; “I love you, boy” or “I love you, big guy”. I told him that I loved him too, but not with the same conviction. I’m certain he knew I loved him and he did hear it, but I never gushed it like he did. I robbed him of that. I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that he dragged me through a litany of stories and memories that were not true on any level. I thought I understood why he told those stories. I’m pretty sure I didn’t.
Too often, instead of going along for that sixty minute ride down a memory lane that really only existed in his mind, I flipped open my phone and pushed the ‘ignore’ button on my phone. While I always got around to calling him back, I never considered that perhaps he needed the connection of his beloved son at that moment in his life. Maybe he needed to tell those stories and feel a special connection to family and a past that often required the emotional bandage of an embellished story of family love and togetherness. No matter, he loved me and only wanted the sound of my voice. With the frivolous swipe of my thumb I rejected him – not just his call, but his reach for me.
My guilt and regret is in full effect; this is how it feels. The truth is that sting is starting to fade and his absence is starting to take its place in my life. My dad is gone and this is now my place in life’s cycle. At my age, questions about our parents take nothing for granted and are almost always framed in the context, “are both of your parents still around?”
Being a father in the midst of a divorce myself I have recognized some of the similarities of our situations. The painful aspects draw inevitable comparisons to the pain that I now can imagine more clearly that my dad must have felt. As I consider my future as a father and a soon to be divorced man, I fear that his path could be mine. The concept of bearing his cross in any way or making some of the same mistakes as he and the ghosts of what I have always considered the ridiculous Biblical concept of “sins of a father” seem to be something from which I am beginning to run from no matter how disconnected from reality or crazy they sound. I am my own man with my own way to go. My father’s ills and struggles are his. I know this yet feel stalked by what I now see was his pain. The depth of it and its lasting affects haunt me and bog me down in the form of this guilt over a rejected cell phone call.
So, my quest here will be to fill in the gaps of what I feel. Sort through some of my own most intimate fears about myself and my place by dipping into the emotion and pain caused by the fracturing of my family. I think that the logical path through this starts with the discovery of who my dad was, and why. Some of us are who we are and that’s that. Others are who they are for a reason. There was a reason my dad was who and how he was. I’m not so sure about me, but I need to know.
Back in late June when I traveled to Oklahoma City to be with my family and father in what were his last days, I wrote daily about his condition as well as my thoughts and reactions to what was going on. What started out as something informational for concerned friends became the most cathartic exercise of my life.
While a lot has changed since returning to life after his death, so much feels so unresolved and unhandled with regard to my father. I initially had a couple dreams about him. Those dreams felt significant at the time and did provide me with some measure of peace regarding him and the decisions my family and I made with regard to his care.
Most of what you’ll read moving forward may be very private and vulnerable feelings, thoughts or actions. Feeling trapped by my dad’s reality and my own human condition, I am venturing out on what I hope is another cathartic venture and sort through what I see and have seen as well as what I feel and have felt.
As I set out on this journey a close friend is entering into the last days of his father’s life. Listening to his updates on his dad’s condition and state put into greater perspective the fragility of life and our emotional vulnerability to the mortality of those we love and hurt the most.
What you will read is basically the perceptions of a child and teenager. I have purposely not fact checked timelines and dates. While the memories are real, I wanted to maintain the integrity of what were my perceptions at the time and as I grew.
I hope that I will ultimately understand my father better and understand in what ways I am not like him. Though sweet and caring, my quest moving forward is to not be like him. His brokenness casts a shadow that follows me. If I am even remotely broken I want to start the process of repair and personal reconciliation.
So, here goes:
My dad died on June 29th. I’ve thought of him countless times since then. I was surprised by the regret that crept into my consciousness with regard to my father. I felt a surface guilt that I can’t quite shake. I certainly don’t feel responsible for his physical demise or the way that he left this world. Everyone involved played a part in making certain that his last days and moments were as comfortable as possible.
My regret is centered on the slight stroke of my right thumb on more than a few occasions in the year or so before he died. My careless, self-absorbed move robbed my father of a few minutes or an hour or perhaps a day of feeling special. I rejected him, if only for a moment, but in the final hours of a loved one’s life, a moment is priceless.
In the year and a half or so before his death, my dad called me once or twice a week. Talking to him was never a quick thing. Entering into a phone conversation with my father was an investment of time and energy. Our conversations had a predictable flow. We’d start with an exchange of pleasantries, “how are things?” “how is work?” Then we would move into a series of sports topics for the meat of the conversation. Then would come the politics portion – especially over the last year or so. He would almost always launch into a rant about how conservative and racially insensitive the people in Oklahoma were. Something I have never experienced in my numerous visits there. I think he just hated living in a ‘red state’ and this was his way of lashing out. He almost always had a long, dramatically embellished story about a neighbor or a child who supposedly said something so racist that it sounded like something out of Selma lunch counter in the late 1950s. There were always references to a precious sentimentality to which he clung from his past. It would often involve the valor of my grandfather or the philosophical and moral conviction of my grandmother. They were his heroes as well as his parents.
We would almost always begin the wind down of any phone conversation with a more sincere exchange of “so, how are things going?” and “how are the girls”. Then he would tell me he loved me; “I love you, boy” or “I love you, big guy”. I told him that I loved him too, but not with the same conviction. I’m certain he knew I loved him and he did hear it, but I never gushed it like he did. I robbed him of that. I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that he dragged me through a litany of stories and memories that were not true on any level. I thought I understood why he told those stories. I’m pretty sure I didn’t.
Too often, instead of going along for that sixty minute ride down a memory lane that really only existed in his mind, I flipped open my phone and pushed the ‘ignore’ button on my phone. While I always got around to calling him back, I never considered that perhaps he needed the connection of his beloved son at that moment in his life. Maybe he needed to tell those stories and feel a special connection to family and a past that often required the emotional bandage of an embellished story of family love and togetherness. No matter, he loved me and only wanted the sound of my voice. With the frivolous swipe of my thumb I rejected him – not just his call, but his reach for me.
My guilt and regret is in full effect; this is how it feels. The truth is that sting is starting to fade and his absence is starting to take its place in my life. My dad is gone and this is now my place in life’s cycle. At my age, questions about our parents take nothing for granted and are almost always framed in the context, “are both of your parents still around?”
Being a father in the midst of a divorce myself I have recognized some of the similarities of our situations. The painful aspects draw inevitable comparisons to the pain that I now can imagine more clearly that my dad must have felt. As I consider my future as a father and a soon to be divorced man, I fear that his path could be mine. The concept of bearing his cross in any way or making some of the same mistakes as he and the ghosts of what I have always considered the ridiculous Biblical concept of “sins of a father” seem to be something from which I am beginning to run from no matter how disconnected from reality or crazy they sound. I am my own man with my own way to go. My father’s ills and struggles are his. I know this yet feel stalked by what I now see was his pain. The depth of it and its lasting affects haunt me and bog me down in the form of this guilt over a rejected cell phone call.
So, my quest here will be to fill in the gaps of what I feel. Sort through some of my own most intimate fears about myself and my place by dipping into the emotion and pain caused by the fracturing of my family. I think that the logical path through this starts with the discovery of who my dad was, and why. Some of us are who we are and that’s that. Others are who they are for a reason. There was a reason my dad was who and how he was. I’m not so sure about me, but I need to know.
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