Happy Father’s Day
My father died 27 years ago, two days before my son was born. I was closer to him then than I had been for many years, thanks to my wonderful husband who helped me to accept as enough the kindness, sensitivity and genuinely good heart, indeed, the love, his alcoholism made it hard for me to acknowledge.
My parents divorced when I was five years old. They remained civil over the years and my stepmother and my mom were friendly during his lifetime, and even after he died at the age of 47. He would have turned 48 later that year. My mom cried when he died. And many times over the years since. I think she always loved him but could not let his brokenness break me, their only child.
Because he was broken. Broken by a family that seemed to prefer him defeated to striving for a life better than they had attained. A family that beat down his dreams as nothing more than smoke in the wind. A family that knew its place (my great-grandmother actually used those exact words when I interviewed her for a sociology paper in college), and, apparently, its place was in a broken down tenement on Amsterdam and 164th, in New York City. He let his dreams wither and die, but, even so, he managed a somewhat better life than his family anticipated, working for the city of New York his entire adult life until his health required he retire on disability a mere few weeks before he died.
He filled his brokenness, the void created by abuse, the shadow of dreams unfulfilled mixed with a healthy dose of self-hatred, with alcohol. Like his mother. Like his sister. Like my cousin. But unlike them, he also filled it with working hard. Playing softball. Fishing. Going on trips to Mexico and Puerto Rico with my stepmom. Coming to ballet recitals and making the audience laugh as he screamed, “Don’t drop my baby” as I performed a pas de deux. Taking his life in his hands as he let me practice driving his boat of a car. Getting me my first summer internship at his job when I was 17. Taking me to dinner, just the two of us, as I was growing into womanhood. Coming to my high school and college graduations. Driving me and all my earthly possessions to college. Throwing a surprise party for my 21st birthday. Writing me letters and calling me when I lived in Spain. Giving me away at my wedding. Always loving. Loving me. Loving my stepmom. Loving my cousin’s children when she couldn’t. Loving his mom despite her constant meanness (in almost every sense of the word “mean”). It was never enough, though. Until it was too late to matter.
I am guilty of being unforgiving. Not of him. I forgave him what I saw as weakness long before he died. Thank God. But I could not find it in my heart to forgive his mother. My grandmother. Sadly, I suppose I still have not. I understood that she was embittered by the society in which she lived, a society which closed a door in her face every time she knocked; that impressed upon her time and again that she did not matter; that she had no right to want better; that what little she was permitted was enough. But even so, I could not forgive her for not trying to offer a better vision to her son; for not instilling in him a sense of self-respect, self-worth, self-love. For mirroring to him the same sense of “less than” that he found out in the world. When the world and your family tells you over and over again that your life is worthless, it is not easy to find the strength inside you to prove to them and yourself that they are wrong. Given his circumstances, he did rather well, I think. He loved, something I am not certain my grandmother ever managed to do.
When my son was born, two days after my father passed, I used to fantasize that their souls met in passing, or, alternatively, that God was giving my daddy a second chance at a happier life, with me as his mom. Either way, I hope he is happy with the mom I have been. And I hope he knows, wherever his soul might be, how much I love my daddy.
Happy Father’s Day to all the daddies. Wishing you much love.