We all have fathers.
Some rock harder than others.
Then it's tomorrow.
This is the either the 6th or 7th year of a Father's Day without my father. I have no father. Only because I am truly, terminally jacked up, (or an exceptionally gifted personal revisionist historian) do I dutifully post the one good picture I have of me and my father as my facebook profile picture. My mom shot that picture, not my dad - the Photographer. Just so's y'know. He always said that THAT was his shot. It was not. My mom took that.
I never see it coming in these days leading up to this holiday ... I am always sent a little south of center when I realize this is that one day. This ONE day where we pay homage to (and profusely thank) the man who helped shape who we have become as adults and the man who was charged with seeing to it that we lived at least long enough to graduate from high school.
I have reason to believe that for small and seriously interrupted parts of my life, my father really did love me (as best he knew how.) And, because I was the first born in my family of origin and born in the this country that I was born in, and at the time when I was born - I learned to be a respectful and diligent daughter - I did what I was asked to do and when I was asked to do it. I never asked why. I jumped high and never asked why.
I learned (among many other things) to not place blame, to take a beating without a word and to proof-read. I could have learned how to better protect my identity (guard that Social Security number like it's freaking gold - even from your father) and I should have learned to never let anyone hit me, but now I've got that goin' for me.
I never learned to keep my heart off my sleeve though, and therein lies the rub. Before I got too old at all, my father discovered that the belt didn't really do all that much to or for me, I could take it and save the tears until he had left the room. Not terribly satisfying for a parent working to evoke a dramatic response.
But, I never learned to keep it together when he beat my brother or my mother instead of me. He was a smart man and an opportunist in every sense of the word. He learned very quickly that the only way to punish me was to hurt the only other people I loved - and to make me watch. Paralyzed.
He was very, very scary, and I never had the courage to try and prevent or stop what he did. He was an Old-School dad who never spared the rod to save the child (or the wife.) He just took it and twisted it a bit, so it became a two-for-one. Like a "Buy one get one" sale.
My father was the product of an abusive home. The child of a mother who helped her mother run a Speak-Easy in the back woods of Nowhere, Missouri. The stories I'd been told, at a very early age, allowed me to make excuses for him for the entirety of his life. I don't even remember many of the details in these stories anymore, but they gave me ferocious nightmares when I was a child.
My mother tirelessly defended him for many years. She demonstrated a level of compassion and empathy that still, to this day, taints how I take in the world around me. I make excuses for abhorrent behavior like none other. I make allowances and concessions and I always try to see the good in people.
And, don't get me wrong here, he had plenty of good in him, it's just that the scales were so seriously tipped as to be (Absolutely-freakin') ludicrous. He was a clinical sociopath with an incredible and insatiable appetite for punishment, pain and ultimate control.
He was also one of the best pranksters I ever met, he had a sharp and sardonic sense of humor, he was a totally off-d'hook writer and he helped me develop many of the strengths that I utilize to good effect today. He showed me how to be a voracious researcher and an incredibly hard worker. He helped me learn to identify the Masters in the worlds of art and music. He gave me the Ink Spots.
He taught me the importance of voting and never failed to provide me with a written list of the republicans he needed me to vote for. When we no longer lived near each other, he would call and tell me who to vote for. Obviously it mattered a lot to him. Why else would he have been a registered voter in 4 states? (And, just for the record - I only did his bidding for one election. From that point on, I voted for whomever the opponent was. Every.single.time.)
What he didn't know he was giving me, however, was in the "Gift That Keeps on Giving." As an adult I only cultivated relationships with men who shared many of his unfavorable and twisted characteristics. They were controlling, selfish and cruel. They lied or told half-truths and omitted details that were tantamount to the direction of their agendas.
I spent the bulk of my youth and beauty (dammit. USE SUNSCREEN) in relationships rooted in fear and a lack of self-survival within the confines of a marriage. The children that I bore, and have subsequently raised, were given no good and solid tools for building healthy relationships based on love and loyalty and mutual admiration.
The very first Christmas that we were required to attend (I was nothing, if not obedient) with my second and last husband we were not asked to join them for dinner and they had not set places for us. Me and my two children (who were only about 6 and 8 years old at the time) sat in a musty-smelling living room on plastic covered couches while he dined with his family and they told stories and laughed.
He did run us through a McDonald's on the way home, so he wasn't entirely heartless. But, I still married this man and spent the better part of my adult life continuing to make excuses for the increasingly mean things he proved he was capable of doing. He became the man that my son called "Dad." My daughter never did, and I think this is the one blessing that came of that life I allowed them to see. She still loves him, but she will always call him by both his first AND last names.
My daughter is 100 times stronger than my mother and easily 50 times stronger than me. She is one half of one of the healthiest relationships I've been blessed enough to not only see, but to get to be a part of. She learned through example what she would and (more importantly) would NOT do and tolerate. She learned to love completely and be as giving and empathetic and understanding as any person I have ever had the pleasure of knowing and loving.
My son - not so much. Not yet.
Ever the eternal optimist, I have to believe that he will grow into a man who honors his commitments and gathers strength from his familial loyalties. I have to believe that he will get to, some day very soon, stop having police involvement in the middle of the night. I have to believe that he will no longer need to file "Spousal Abuse" charges against a person who promised to honor and love him through sickness and health. I have to believe that he is not all that cool with razors held to his throat.
I would like to believe that my son will also, one day, love me as much as I loved my mother. By allowing what I allowed, I taught him to allow it as well, If I were him - I'd be south-of-center with me, too. I know, however, that he knows. He gets it. It is just a viciously difficult form of self-abuse to stop leaning on. And, I am an exceptionally good teacher ... and I love a good pair of crutches...
I know that I provided both my kids with exposure to some of the most amazing fathers I've ever gotten to know. My uncles (and my "uncles") were the men who probably saved my life.
Not a day goes by that I don't miss my Uncle Gordon (RIP) and think of my Uncles Johnny and Larry (who were neither, technically, my uncles - rather my father's cousins) and my Uncle Barney who made us M&M pancakes every year in Branson for our family reunions. Ooohhh, and my Uncle Larry (who did get total Street Cred for being the "coolest" of all the uncles and turning us onto Three Dog Night and Neil Diamond) who loved and still loves my Aunt Jeannie so much that it's palpable. And My Uncle Don, and Uncle John O and Uncle Mick and ... and.... and ...
It's not like I grew up in a total vacuum of nothing more than really rotten fathers. I saw amazingly great dads all the time and I aspired to find men like them with whom to build the family that I'd fantasized about.
In this one specific instance, I must believe that I am as much a product of nurture as I am of nature. And, in watching my daughter grow into the beautiful, strong and independent woman she has become - I have faith that we can break the cycle. My grand daughter (Evelyn Mae) will have twice her mother's strength AND relationships built upon love and respect. She will never allow what my mother and I have.
Fathers, be good to your daughters and sons. You fathers who have done what you were sent here to do - Word up. Nice work.
In the end, when laying on your death-bed (if you still have your mental faculties) you will not be thinking of that 1973 Red convertible Bonneville, you'll be remembering the sounds of your children's laughter and the way their hair smells when they've just gotten out of the tub and climbed up on your lap. You will be remembering exactly what their hands look like.
If you are one of these men: Happy Father's Day. You kick butt and you make me happy that you are here. Thank you for minimizing my hopelessness about the future and not telling your children what a disappointment they are. You deserve breakfast in bed and a whole day with your feet up and a remote control in your hand (or a fishing pole, sitting by your father and your son on the banks of a fat river full of catfish.)