Learning To Love My Father
My father was an angry man. A very angry man. It’s something I understood and internalized from a very young age. It’s something that has shaped me and frustrated me and saddened — at times even devastated me — throughout many years of my life.
As my mother tells the story, grandma (my father’s mom) told my mother that she and my father should never have children. My father did not like children one bit. But my mother, not believing anyone didn’t like children, decided to have 4 children with my father anyways.
It’s not that she tricked my father into having kids. He was involved in our creation, after all. I just don’t know that either of them realized the powder keg of anger and devastation that would ignite once children were in the home. At least I hope they did not knowingly place 4 children in such a hellish harm’s way.
As I said, my father was a very angry man. That anger came out in physical ways, very physical ways. It also came out in verbal abuse and seeming disgust and disdain for myself and my siblings. To say he did not like children was one of the great understatements in all of family history.
I grew up in a time when the spanking of children was not only common but encouraged. In fact, in our neighborhood it was not unusual for an adult other than your parent to discipline you if they were in the general vicinity of your infraction.
But my father had his own style of anger-fueled physical discipline that went so far above and beyond traditional spanking that it should have involved removing either us or him from the household. But since that was quite a different time and quite a different place we were left to live in constant abuse.
Many times there were no real infractions leading up to the severe punishments. We were just kids being kids but my father could not abide us just merely being children and demanded we be adults. Which, of course we could not be.
Fortunately for us, my parents divorced after 15 years of marriage (I was 9-years-old at the time). And in the end, my father’s own mother picked my mom and all 4 of us children up, taking us to her house so we would be safe from my father’s rage as he read my mother’s letter telling him she wanted a divorce. My father never forgave his mother and she went to the grave with a broken heart for taking my mother’s “side” even though it had been the absolute right thing to do.
I was not there when he got that letter but I was later told by other neighborhood children the screams and sounds that came from our house that night were frightening. Was it because my father was in one of his typical angry rages? Was it because what was happening was out of his control? Or was it because something had pierced the tempered over years armor he’d worn protecting his heart most of his life? I will never know the answer for sure. I just know it haunted me to think about it.
There’s so much more I can recall, so many soul shattering details I could convey. But that’s not the reason for this rendering.
As I got older and times with my father were more rare (and much more reasonable) I began to see things differently. I also heard some things about my father’s childhood that seemed, at least to a young teenager, to be cause for my father’s anger, his temper. And I started to feel just the smallest twinge of compassion creeping into my heart for him.
Was he the monster I had been led to believe he was? Surely, I had enough personal memories to deem him so. But was the view from child’s eyes the clearest way to discern the truth? I had no way of knowing.
So I decided to wait and watch and see for myself what this man, my father really was in his present life and tried to honestly connect with him positively on some level. If that was possible.
At first it was awkward, so used to our usual surface roles we played with each other on our occasional visits. He seemingly wanted relationship of some sort by that time and, though I was guarded, I realized— if for no other reason — I needed to sort out the demons from my own past if I were to have a somewhat “normal” future.
I did not go into it with foolish notions such as a tearful heartfelt “I’m sorry” from him. I doubted I’d ever hear that and honestly no longer needed it. What would it change?
I also would not compromise my current state of well-being or immense emotional healing mostly brought about by years of self-reflection and my strong faith, to have an unhealthy relationship with him. Or anyone.
In other words, I had finally put my father in the place he needed to be. He could no longer hurt me. He no longer had that power. I had taken it back from him. It would never be his again.
And I finally understood that what was normal to him was certainly not normal for most as time and time again — to preserve himself — he would sacrifice me and my feelings. But I would not play the sacrificial lamb any longer. I was strong enough. I understood enough. I cared enough about me.
And when he on some level finally understood that, real relationship — or as real as it could be — started. It was a slow, awkward dance at first. But eventually, as we began to trust each other, there came a true enjoyment of short spans of time spent together.
The first big true emotional breakthrough came when I gave birth to my son, Richie. My father actually drove quite a distance (after working all day) to visit us at the hospital. Was that a small tear he wiped away as he cradled this little one in his arms? Could it really be?
My father and his wife started making regular visits to see Richie and I and my siblings and their spouses were also included. Was this finally the father I had always wanted? I scarce not believe it.
Then, when my precious son was diagnosed with a rare terminal illness at the age of 6–1/2 months-old things changed even more. There were more frequent visits, more phone calls, more times shared with my father.
Did this little one, my son, hold the key that would unlock the well-guarded impenetrable heart of my father? Could it be so? I began to hope more than ever that it was. Yet, still I checked myself before expecting too much from a man who had before now been unable to give the loved I wished for — the love a daughter deserved from her father just because she was his daughter.
The day my son died unexpectedly I called my father. He put the phone down and I heard muffled sobs echoing out of the man who I once believed had no heart. This man, the monster of my past, truly was human. He felt pain, unabashedly so in that moment. And his shattered heart was finally freed from the ice prison it had been kept in for so many years.
In that moment he was allowing himself to deep down feel, to be out of control. He allowed himself to understand — to grasp — his own pain — someone else’s pain and make it his. My son’s death finally allowed him to become my father. My dad. At least for a time.
He told me he’d be there for all and any of the funeral process I wanted him to be part of. And he was there from start to finish. He was there for me. He was there for our Richie. He was there because he was my father. He was there because he loved me. He did not say so. He did not have to.
And I will never forget what happened at the funeral home the night before my son was buried. My dad was alone in the parlor with my son and I watched from afar as he said goodbye (alone) to his Richie. His hands were resting on the casket and all of a sudden the tiny white casket and pedestal it was on started rocking. It took me a moment to understand that my dad was crying so hard he was making the casket rock as he could no longer hide his grief. I cried along with him from afar. As he would want.
For a time after that he looked out for me, extending himself more than I ever thought possible. Until retirement came and he moved many hours away and Richie’s memory began to fade. My father was going back into emotional hiding again and I could not bring him back.
I wish I could say that our relationship only got better, that this hiding he did was just momentary. But it wasn’t, and as time and space apart spanned many years we crept back into our old ways and became mere casual acquaintances. The awkward dance was over.
Phone calls I made to him were cut short so he could watch a tv program. It seemed never to be a good time to pay him a visit. He buried himself in local busyness with strangers who knew nothing of him or his past and he liked it that way. I supposed it was because he could be anyone he wanted to be with them. They had no history. They were safe.
Then things seemed to change with him again a few short years ago, and he became more willing to be vulnerable again. To let me back in. I don’t know why. Perhaps there was finally a twinge of past regret? Perhaps he just realized he was coming to the end of his life. Whatever the case, he pursued a relationship again.
So I drove the many hours and visited him. And I have to say it was during that trip that my father shared more about his life than he ever had before. There were no deep dark secrets revealed as to why he was the person he’d become. There was no past condemnation. There were no unkind words or questions I knew he would not answer anyways. We just enjoyed each other’s company.
And at the end of our visit he said, “I love you. I always have and always will”. It was the last time I would see my father alive.
We talked on the phone more often after that visit, there was an unusual ease in our conversation.
Then his unexpected trip to the hospital came and I offered to come down and stay with him. “I don’t want anyone to visit right now. Maybe when I get home”, his deep voice stated emphatically. In other words, he wanted to be left alone as he’d wished to be so many times over the years. He was still in control. He would do this one last thing his way.
I spoke with my father one more time after that, a time filled with a frantic attempt to say a final goodbye without saying so out loud. He had his cell phone in his hospital room and he kept rolling over on it and disconnecting our calls. After being connected for the 6th time he finally said he was tired and told me he loved me. I knew it was goodbye.
As I hung up the phone it was as if I finally, finally realized this man, my father had indeed loved me my whole life. He just didn’t know how to say it or say it in a way I would understand.
And, I also finally, finally realized I had not actually taken years to learn to love him. I had always loved him too on some level. Not because of anything he’d done. Not for anything he hadn’t done. Just because he was my father.
Jackie Deems copyright 2019