I've told some stories on this blog about some of the things my Dad said and did, especially about his utter insensitivity to my mother's weight problem (and my own). There have been times when I hated him. He was judgmental, pessimistic, and distant by nature and by kneejerk reaction. The first thing out of his mouth would be a huge "NO you shouldn't!" no matter what great half-baked idea I floated.
But this was the thing about my dad - he would eventually come around. Sometimes 180 degrees in an hour; maybe it would take a week or two. It was just his depression-era, dustbowl Kansas, fatherless upbringing coming to the fore, always ready to rain on any parade that happened to be passing by at the moment. Stubborn. Sure. Cautious. To my frequent frustration and fury. And yet - -
He spent a lifetime reading books about wide-ranging mystical and spiritual subjects; meditated daily; did the course in miracles; went monthly to a channeler who claimed to be a spirit entity 4000 years old; knew all of the Krisnamurti and Joseph Campbell texts backwards and forwards; studied comparative religions and ideologies; built a pyramid out of copper tubing and placed it over his purified water supply; and wrote a daily journal entry, typed, for over 45 years.
He grew the most beautiful vegetables and flowers, all organically, all by himself, on the 5-acre property he bought when he was well into his 70's. In the middle of the property, which was in the middle of an island in Puget Sound, he built his dream house with soaring ceilings of whitewashed cedar planks and a pot-bellied stove in the center that was stoked with alderwood from trees felled to make room for the house (actually, he and I designed the house for years, fiddling with graph paper every time we came together, then when he found the property, he hired two ex-Rashnishis to build it while he served as the site cleaner-upper; he said that if you wanted to hire people with good work ethics, look no further than ex-Rashnishis). His vegetables were pieces of art and his psychedelically colored dahlias were famous for miles around.
He stank at painting but kept at it, getting out the oils every year or so and trying his hand at a landscape or two before packing them all back in their little wooden crates. To him, I was amazingly talented and artistic and musical, so different from the person he was.
He fell in love with a dog that was the light of his life the last 13 years he was alive, and when one day I asked him if he ever regretted denying me a dog when I was growing up, he teared up and said, "Son, I regret it with all my heart."
He sadly, dejectedly took the news of my coming out (he was already about 80), grappled with it for about a week, and in the depth of his despair called his best friend Forrest, who basically said, "What the hell are you talking about, Geoff? Steve is a good and loving son. Get a grip." And he did. He called me and said, "Son, I love you and I always will and that will never change." A few years later he told me had had been molested daily by the neighbor man for about six months when he was seven years old. On the way to and from school. The man moved away and the abuse ended. He had never told anyone. He finally told me because we were having this frank discussion about gay sex, and I said something like, "Just because you have gay sex doesn't make you gay." He agreed with me, told me calmly about his victimization, and that was the end of it. He had kept that secret for 73 years. There's not a picture of him smiling from the time he was seven until his high school graduation ten years later.
He would drive an extra ten miles to save 8 cents on dishwashing liquid, but he ALWAYS came to my aid financially when I needed it, which was infrequent, still . . . an unexpected dentist bill or a blown engine, or the time I lost my wallet in Europe - he'd be there, always with a word or two about preparing for a rainy day, but he was there. Helping. Supporting. Getting me through it.
He somehow accepted that I needed to do the foolish, foolhardy thing of leaving the federal government after 15 years of service, walk away from all that security and benefits. And he had had a stellar Naval career, serving as a Judge Advocate General (JAG, like the television series, which he loved) and a courts martial judge, retiring as a Captain with 31 years of service, and then living for another 30 years on the financial cushion of federal retirement payments. My snubbing of the cushy perch I had at the Justice Department, halfway through a career about which he was extremely proud, was very hard to swallow. But he somehow let himself be persuaded that it was the right thing for me to do. Oh God, how he dealt with that, I just don't know, it was so against his instinct for safety, security, financial support. And the fact that I chose to "recover" from my federal career by floating in a pool in Palm Springs for 18 months, financed by my cashed-out pension, well, he just couldn't understand, but he accepted it. At age 83. Because he believed in me.
He gave my mom the gentlest, most loving and respectful care in the last months of her life, and I will never know a person who could be so compassionate, the compassion welling up out of his shoulds and don'ts, his knee-jerk reactionary ways, until his sweetness pushed through and he was the loving little boy he was before the dust storms hit and the world became a sepia-toned hard hard place.
He never lied and he never cheated and he never stole. He was a man of great character who held onto his hopefulness somehow, his belief that there could be a better way to live a life.
For two years he dealt uncomplainingly with the ravages of a failing body, with the indignity of feed tubes and stomas and catheters, in constant pain, with no real pleasures left except maybe a drive through the countryside or his dog snuggled beside him in the recliner. He called it "dying by inches," and he hated it, but he gritted his teeth and beared it, like he had done with every challenge to ever come his way. "Life is a series of bitter disappointments, Son," he said to me once, and it was like a knife through my heart, because I knew that I had been the cause of some of those disappointments he had suffered. But it was the way he saw the world.
The book he was reading when he died in my arms, five years ago today, was, "How to Be Happy." He was about halfway through the book.
I do believe he found his happiness at last.
I love you, Dad. I miss you.
But this was the thing about my dad - he would eventually come around. Sometimes 180 degrees in an hour; maybe it would take a week or two. It was just his depression-era, dustbowl Kansas, fatherless upbringing coming to the fore, always ready to rain on any parade that happened to be passing by at the moment. Stubborn. Sure. Cautious. To my frequent frustration and fury. And yet - -
He spent a lifetime reading books about wide-ranging mystical and spiritual subjects; meditated daily; did the course in miracles; went monthly to a channeler who claimed to be a spirit entity 4000 years old; knew all of the Krisnamurti and Joseph Campbell texts backwards and forwards; studied comparative religions and ideologies; built a pyramid out of copper tubing and placed it over his purified water supply; and wrote a daily journal entry, typed, for over 45 years.
He grew the most beautiful vegetables and flowers, all organically, all by himself, on the 5-acre property he bought when he was well into his 70's. In the middle of the property, which was in the middle of an island in Puget Sound, he built his dream house with soaring ceilings of whitewashed cedar planks and a pot-bellied stove in the center that was stoked with alderwood from trees felled to make room for the house (actually, he and I designed the house for years, fiddling with graph paper every time we came together, then when he found the property, he hired two ex-Rashnishis to build it while he served as the site cleaner-upper; he said that if you wanted to hire people with good work ethics, look no further than ex-Rashnishis). His vegetables were pieces of art and his psychedelically colored dahlias were famous for miles around.
He stank at painting but kept at it, getting out the oils every year or so and trying his hand at a landscape or two before packing them all back in their little wooden crates. To him, I was amazingly talented and artistic and musical, so different from the person he was.
He fell in love with a dog that was the light of his life the last 13 years he was alive, and when one day I asked him if he ever regretted denying me a dog when I was growing up, he teared up and said, "Son, I regret it with all my heart."
He sadly, dejectedly took the news of my coming out (he was already about 80), grappled with it for about a week, and in the depth of his despair called his best friend Forrest, who basically said, "What the hell are you talking about, Geoff? Steve is a good and loving son. Get a grip." And he did. He called me and said, "Son, I love you and I always will and that will never change." A few years later he told me had had been molested daily by the neighbor man for about six months when he was seven years old. On the way to and from school. The man moved away and the abuse ended. He had never told anyone. He finally told me because we were having this frank discussion about gay sex, and I said something like, "Just because you have gay sex doesn't make you gay." He agreed with me, told me calmly about his victimization, and that was the end of it. He had kept that secret for 73 years. There's not a picture of him smiling from the time he was seven until his high school graduation ten years later.
He would drive an extra ten miles to save 8 cents on dishwashing liquid, but he ALWAYS came to my aid financially when I needed it, which was infrequent, still . . . an unexpected dentist bill or a blown engine, or the time I lost my wallet in Europe - he'd be there, always with a word or two about preparing for a rainy day, but he was there. Helping. Supporting. Getting me through it.
He somehow accepted that I needed to do the foolish, foolhardy thing of leaving the federal government after 15 years of service, walk away from all that security and benefits. And he had had a stellar Naval career, serving as a Judge Advocate General (JAG, like the television series, which he loved) and a courts martial judge, retiring as a Captain with 31 years of service, and then living for another 30 years on the financial cushion of federal retirement payments. My snubbing of the cushy perch I had at the Justice Department, halfway through a career about which he was extremely proud, was very hard to swallow. But he somehow let himself be persuaded that it was the right thing for me to do. Oh God, how he dealt with that, I just don't know, it was so against his instinct for safety, security, financial support. And the fact that I chose to "recover" from my federal career by floating in a pool in Palm Springs for 18 months, financed by my cashed-out pension, well, he just couldn't understand, but he accepted it. At age 83. Because he believed in me.
He gave my mom the gentlest, most loving and respectful care in the last months of her life, and I will never know a person who could be so compassionate, the compassion welling up out of his shoulds and don'ts, his knee-jerk reactionary ways, until his sweetness pushed through and he was the loving little boy he was before the dust storms hit and the world became a sepia-toned hard hard place.
He never lied and he never cheated and he never stole. He was a man of great character who held onto his hopefulness somehow, his belief that there could be a better way to live a life.
For two years he dealt uncomplainingly with the ravages of a failing body, with the indignity of feed tubes and stomas and catheters, in constant pain, with no real pleasures left except maybe a drive through the countryside or his dog snuggled beside him in the recliner. He called it "dying by inches," and he hated it, but he gritted his teeth and beared it, like he had done with every challenge to ever come his way. "Life is a series of bitter disappointments, Son," he said to me once, and it was like a knife through my heart, because I knew that I had been the cause of some of those disappointments he had suffered. But it was the way he saw the world.
The book he was reading when he died in my arms, five years ago today, was, "How to Be Happy." He was about halfway through the book.
I do believe he found his happiness at last.
I love you, Dad. I miss you.
9 comments:
Oh my God. I cannot even speak right now.
My heart is so full. Thank you, stevie.
This is the most beautiful thing I've read in a long long time, Stevie. I don't know what else to even say in the face of it. Just thank you. So much.
Thank you, Sheila, and thank you, Tracey. It means so much to me :)
xxx Stevie
This is just beautiful, Stevie. My mom is in hospice care now although she is doing well physically, she is now very depressed. It's weird that the thing we think took her into depression is that she felt so well. Your memories of your dad really hit home for me. I love that you touched on so many aspects about him, good, not so good, and bittersweet.
I hope I am as good a daughter as you are a son. Thanks for sharing this.
Oh, Jackie, I send you and your family my most heartfelt support at this time. I think I know what you mean about your mother being depressed now because she felt so well before. It's like she's missing the person she used to be. I'm sure you're a wonderful daughter. I could've been a much better son - goodness knows, there are so many things I regret - but no matter what, Dad kept trying to be a better Dad, so I finally had to follow along. xxx Stevie
That's beautiful and thought provoking post. Thanks for sharing it.
Thanks, Dave. Glad you stopped by!
You know what's really great, is through the years both of you learned and accepted each other's gifts. And I see now where you get your tenacity and gentleness from. He left you that as well.
It's funny, Alex, but we seemed to alternate through the years for trying to mend our relationship - I would push on it for awhile, then he'd give it a push or two, until in that last year of his life we had let all the crap fall by the wayside and we could appreciate each other, accept each other, love each other just as we were. It may have been the only unconditional love either of us ever experienced. I'm very lucky.
xxx Stevie
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