I decided to write this based on the thread about ladies having a man in their life that they trust.
First of all, I want to say that I don’t write the way I do so much as to be about me, but to encourage hearing more from you about YOU. While it may help me to write, even be somewhat cathartic, I’m hoping it provides benefit to you.
You only know what you know.
So whatever good, or bad, whatever shortcomings, you accept what you have and may not even realize what was lacking until sometime later. Even children growing up under awful situations learn what to expect, and except the situation and learn ways to deal with it. It’s survival.
My story isn’t all that interesting.
My parents were good parents – they worked hard, were very simple people, tee totaling, old fashioned, Depression Era Midwestern transplants and we were raised with very old fashioned good morals and ethics. Our life was modest, as my dad worked hard to support a handicapped wife (she worked, though), his mother and five children (6 at one time) in a small town.
But parents then, in my experience as well as my peers, were just ‘fixtures’, just as children were just ‘fixtures’ in the home. Parents were those Authority figures who allowed you to live in their home and sup at their table – seen and not heard. Any conversations were just surface conversations, nothing ever deep. Actually, I can’t recall any conversations with my parents about much of anything. You didn’t talk to them, and they really didn’t talk to you. You just did whatever you were supposed to, and so did they.
We were raised knowing that when we were 18, we had to be gone, and when we were 18, we were – all of us.
The last time I had a family Holiday dinner (meaning with parents, and some sibs), I was 16.
What happened to my mother is another story, but when she was the age I am now, she needed to have full time care and went into a nursing home.
When I married my ex husband, I think, looking back, that one attraction to me for marrying him was his family. His family interacted in ways I’d never seen or known before, and I realized all that I didn’t have. I didn’t know that parents went to your school things, talked to you, or wanted to know you as a person. There was a lot that those years showed me.
When my own father passed last March, three of my four sisters mourned, as did I. But it was the one who didn’t mourn who showed me that what we were mourning was not only the loss of one’s physical presence, but of what never was.
The thread was about trust.
The reason I could never list my father is because he never knew me.
-- Modified on 2/8/2004 8:16:15 AM
Sedona,
You are a seriously classy lady, and catharsis or no, your post is remarkable for its depth of feeling and for its clarity.
I recently read "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" (by Mitch Albom, an excellent, deeply moving book) which says at one point that all parents damage their children. While absolutes like that make for good literature, I also can't disprove it; I've known too many wonderful people who dread time with their parents. My own parents are kind, compassionate and generous people who raised my sister and me to be the same...and still, there are issues that come simply from my parents being human. In my case, at least, the damage is minor.
Perhaps that's just part of Life, a natural part of growing up, like skinned knees and broken hearts; It helps us prepare for a world that is often impersonal.
As a father, I work hard to make sure that my daughters can trust me. I participate. I talk with them. We laugh, and sometimes, when something traumatic has happened, they cry and I am reassuring.
The best Father's Day gift I ever got was a hand-made card from my older daughter, who was 11 at the time. It read, "I love you, Dad. Thank you for treating me like a human being."
Yoda
Thanks for sharing this, Sedona. It is especially significant for me as my father nears the end of his time on this earth.
Some of the things you point out are true in my case - Depression Era Midwesterners, surface conversations, seen and not heard, etc. Very different from the relationship my wife and I had with our children.
However, we continued (my two brothers and I) to go home for the holidays and other occasions, which allowed us to interact with my folks as adults. I cannot begin to place a value on these trips home, as I look back over the years. Our family has become reasonably close (as much as folks of German ancestry are able to, at least.)
As things turned out, a few years ago my wife and I moved to the same small town in upsate New York as my folks did thirty years ago, so we are now able to provide some comfort to him as he fights the battles with his health.
The moral of this story - I will not need to mourn his death, since I have taken the opportunity to know him throughout his life.
-- Modified on 2/8/2004 9:41:28 AM
Thanks for your story.
I moved, married, had children and he moved to another state with his new wife, and made it clear that he wanted solace.
I had the occasion to see him in 1989, with my two children, his grandchildren, of which he has many. I'm glad I saw him but he expressed little interest.
His widow mentions often how much he loved us all. I never doubted it.
I only missed it.
But I mourned him for several years, finally realizing that what I mourned was the missed chance to have a real father (although he was a good man and never mistreated me). I tried to be different with my kids but only they can tell you if I suceeded. My mom, though, was the love of my life! and I still can't get her out of my mind (3.5 years later).
I hope our paths cross one day.
Thanks for sharing, Sedona.
I have a similar story. Perhaps it is the generation, but my father was too busy for our family. He never really was around. He'd come home for dinner and then rush off to some meeting. He never did the coaching thing, or any other activities with us.
He never told me he loved me. Not even at the end when he was dying of cancer. But I did get to spend some quality time with him sailing near the end of his life. He acquired a sail boat, and it was impossible for him to avoid interacting with me/us due to the small space.
I miss him because I think the relationship would have deepened. But I will always be angry that he wasn't really there for us when we were growing up. My Mom did it all and had a job as a teacher, but even she has never told me that she loves me.
I have tried to be a different parent. I coached sports teams for all my kids, got involved in boy scouts and all that. And I tell them I love them every time I see them.
Is the difference a matter of the time in which we have grown up, and perhaps our experiences? I don't know. But thanks for sharing. This is an important topic.
Sedona,
I grew up in a dysfunctional household. While my parents both grew up in the Deep South in the twenties, they came from very different backgrounds. My mother was from the black middle class. Her father had a "good" union job as a railroad fireman; her mother taught school for a living. She was introverted, but precocious. She finished college at nineteen. She often says that she believed her first vocation was to be a Catholic nun, but as she said, "southern girls don't stay single". My father on the other hand, was the son of a poor itinerant Baptist minister and steelworker. He literally walked off the farm to go to college and worked enough jobs to get a degree, which was an accomplishment for anyone in the 1940s. In a traditional sense, it was the last thing he accomplished. It always seemed to me that achieving what he did sapped all of his energy and ambition.
It was from these backgrounds that they came to their marriage. It lasted for 35 years until they divorced in the early eighties. In the meantime, the lived separate lives; they avoided each other on most issues, except when it came to us kids--my older brother and my younger sister. There was not a lot of warmth or emotion in my house, mostly common decency and reasoned discussion.
My Dad was a gambler and a ladies man. But we never went without materially. My mother and he put three kids through fairly expensive private schools without a dime of scholarship help. Nevertheless, I blamed him for a lot of my mother's pain even though my mother certainly kept her emotional distance. After his death, she often expressed guilt for not loving him enough. In any case, I was very judgmental of both of them for how we were raised.
To some degree, I repeated the pattern. I am attracted to smart women. I met and married one in a whirlwind courtship. And I discovered, over the years, that I am in a relationship that I wouldn't enter again if I had the choice. I've tried to provide a stable home for my own kids and I've tried work on my marriage, sometimes harder and more often than others. I started hobbying to get some of the physical and emotional intimacy that I was not getting at home. For me, hobbying is a safe haven since the risk of emotional attachment that could be destructive to my marriage is low. I know that there are other risks if my cover ever gets blown, but in the past I've been willing to take them. I am trying with my wife again, so I'm not hobbying right now.
What I have learned about myself from all this, is I have no right to judge. My parents were not bad people. They did the best they could given the lives they had. Life is too complicated to judge others. I have apologized to my mother for my judgment. Unfortunately, my father died shortly after the divorce. I really regret sometimes that I didn't have a chance to apologize to him. When I look at it, they did okay by us. If nothing else, they gave us the capacity to risk for both life and love and learn from our experiences.
That must have been hard to write.
It makes me think about my relationship with my mother and father.
I appreciate your effort.
Sedona,
Awesome piece of writing. It must have taken a great deal of courage to write this. Unfortunately, it brought back some memories for me as well. Both my parents passed over 15 years ago but the happy memories of my childhood still come back from time to time. There are times I wish I could ask my dad "one more question."
Thanks for sharing. Someday I hope we will have a chance to meet.
Intriguing, complex, enigmatic, sexy, revealing, surprising, breathtaking, you are all those things.