Father’s Day
[NOTE: This a slightly edited version of a previous post of mine.]
It’s Father’s Day. A sort of poor stepchild to Mother’s Day, although fathers themselves are hardly that. They are central to a family.
Just ask the people who never had one, or who had a difficult relationship with theirs. Or ask the people who were nurtured in the strength of a father’s love and guidance.
Of course, the complex world being what it is, and people and families being what they are, it’s the rare father-child relationship that’s entirely conflict-free. But for the vast majority, love is almost always present, even though at times it can be hard to express or to perceive. It can take a child a very long time to see it or feel it; but that’s part of what growing up is all about. And “growing up” can go on even in adulthood, or old age.
Father’s Day—or Mother’s Day, for that matter—can wash over us in a wave of treacly sentimentality. But the truth of the matter is often stranger, deeper, and more touching. Sometimes the words of love catch in the throat before they’re spoken. But they can still be sensed. Sometimes a loving father is lost through distance or misunderstanding, and then regained.
There’s an extraordinary poem by Robert Hayden that depicts one of these uneasy father-child connections—the shrouded feelings, both paternal and filial, that can come to be seen in the fullness of time as the love that was always, always there. I offer it on this Father’s Day to all of you.
THOSE WINTER SUNDAYS
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house.Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
[ADDENUDM: Charles Blow talks about one of these troubled father-son relationships—his own, with his father.]
This is my first Father’s Day without a father, and that poem has done me in.
An interesting likeminded story:
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/myths/myths/his-father-died-of-syphilis
Excerpt:
His father’s illness impressed Winston Churchill with a strong sense of impending mortality. He frequently remarked that he needed to accomplish his goals before his forties, and his resultant activity caused observers to refer to him as a “young man in a hurry.” Presumably he was happily surprised at his longevity, but he long accepted the common rumors about his father’s death. Late in life he told his private secretary, “you know my father died of locomotion ataxia, the child of syphilis.”32
When did Churchill pick up this story? The likely time seems to be 1924, when Frank Harris’s book was published, precisely when Winston had left the Liberal Party and reverted to the Conservatives. The Tories were incensed and attempted to blacken his name, calling him a drunkard and saying that he was infected with syphilis. This same year, his 11-year-old nephew was confronted by a classmate at Summer Field Prep School, Oxford, who charged, “My daddy says all you Churchills have revolting diseases and are quite mad.”33
Yeah, it’s been pretty much a thankless job over the years. I wish it was called dad’s day, though. I mean, like the saying goes, any man can be a father. You don’t even have to be around to be one.
I never considered it thankless. Sometimes frustrating; often rewarding.
My only regrets are for the mistakes I made. Fortunately, I don’t think they were too serious; despite my ignorance (with the first one anyway.) Too bad there isn’t some qualification training before the responsibility confronts you.
I am glad that I lived long enough to see how my daughters turned out. It gives me a sense that my life had meaning.
Mrs. Whatsit,
That poem moved me too, though more in thought of my mother.The things I wish I’d said and done, the thanks never sufficiently given.
Mrs. Whatsit, I am very sorry for the loss of your father. Mine died in 2002, and I still miss him, and wish I could ask him to explain something about our family or hometown, or re-tell an old Navy story from WWII.
Toy
Charles Blow’s anecdote of his father resonated with me. My father wasn’t a drunk, but he was a man with no knowledge of how to be a father. His own father deserted the family when he was eight. His mother remarried a man who made his life miserable and he moved out as soon as he finished high school.
He didn’t know how to display affection or emotion of any kind that I saw. He had an easy going manner, but was all business. There was no joking around or “nonsense” allowed in his house. He worked six days a week and often worked overtime. He had a serious work ethic.
He was an electrician and left our home in Colorado to build a Naval base at Sand Point, Idaho in 1942. Two years later he and mother were divorced. He settled in Provo, Utah and remarried. My two brothers and I visited there for a few weeks in the summer from 1945 to 1947. His new wife did not like us and the feeling was mutual. My Dad was caught in between. It was a nightmare for him to mediate between she and us. It bwas one reason the visist ended. Even though there was no real relationship there, and no real reason other than that he was my Dad, I worshipped the ground he walked on.
He was killed in an industrial accident at the Geneva Steel plant in Provo in 1950. I was a freshman in college at the time. Our family drove straight through to Provo to attend his funeral. I don’t remember the funeral except the feeling I had that my chest would explode. I tried to be stoic, but wept uncontrollably and felt ashamed because I knew my father did not like displays of emotion.
As the time has passed and I have pondered those years, it has become plain to me he did the best he could under the circumstances. I realized that I didn’t have a good role model to be a father either. Somehow, I muddled through and being called, “Dad,” by our daughter is the sweetest sound in the world.
We dads have a heavier load that moms. Mothers suffer the joy and pain of pregnancy & child birth. An experience that certainly takes a toll. But, except for single mothers, the burden is then lifted and mothers have the softer role of bestowing unconditional love.
Fathers shoulder the burden of keeping watch; nurturing when called for and guiding with a strong spirit (and sometimes heavy hand) until we see our children reach adulthood. We watchful fathers are often not appreciated by society and during the teenage years by our children. 😉
I am fortunate that my children have grown up to understand why I demanded what I demanded of them. Their words as full fledged adults with children of their own warm my heart today.
Such a sad poem. My Dad was the best man I ever knew. He died when I was 20 and I am forever grateful that I had just learned to appreciate him before he died. I miss him every day, 35 years later.
Parker, I certainly acknowledge the good that watchful fathers contribute to society. I can’t say I agree with your opinion that mothers have it easier, though. I shared the burden of that nurturing and watchfulness and guiding and heartache with my husband. And I was not appreciated by my teenagers either. But I revel in my relationship with my children now that they are adults. They think I’m a little smarter than they used to!
I expect that seeing a man “doing the best he can” is a good lesson, whether or not it seems to have been an effective effort.
Some years ago, working with exchange students, we put up some kids from a town four hours away. The exchange students in one school would spend a week at another school along with their American siblings.
We had a Brazilian kid with us for a few days, named “So-so”, short for Solange. Nice kid.
Gathering at a church to split up the kids for the ride home, one of the American kids said, “You’re So-so’s Dad.”
Now, in exchange student vocab, that means the adult male in whatever house you’re staying, even if only for a weekend.
But, damn, it felt good. And I remember it after almost twenty years.
Mrs. Whatsit, I’m sorry for your loss. May you find some comfort in your memories
JJ, thanks for telling that story. Heartbreaking truth. I see the conceptual similarity to the linked story, and I also see a similarity in the writing–so clear and honest, we feel the universal emotion in your telling of the particulars. I trust you have embraced, by now, the wisdom of your tears at the funeral, and forgiven yourself for what felt like an offense against your dad.
My dad was very supportive. He died when I was about 30; early, but it could have been worse. I have some really nice letters and notes from him. One that he wrote when I was about 17 and had just mashed in the side of my mom’s car door through carelessness in a parking lot, says:
Dear Old Sal,
Don’t worry about the accident, I’ll take care of it.
A few such scrapes are inevitable, and can even be beneficial in helping avoid worse ones in the future.
Love,
Dad
I was fortunate to have such a dad.
I had a rocky relationship with my dad till he died when i was 15. Then it stayed rocky for the next 20 years after he was gone. But i grew up and accepted he loved me in the only way he knew how.
A favorite quote of mine from Les Brown…”I ain’t who i wanna be and i ain’t who i’m gonna be. But thank God i’m not who i was”.
My dad lived to 90. Came back from WWII, went to school at night on the GI Bill, bought a little house in the suburbs and lived in it with my mother, 5 kids, and his mother-in-law. Put us all through college. Loved my mom for 66 years. His father died when he was 16; I don’t know where he learned it all.
I loved my dad who passed away two years ago.
Yesterday, I got some very special cards from my kids (8) each of whom I love and it seems they love me as well. When I consider what I have in my family, the only thing I could choke out in the moment was, “I’m a rich man…”
What Sarah Ralph wrote about her auto accident rang true with me. A month after I got my driver’s license I drove fast on our winding, hilly country roads because I was pissed off about something. I hit a patch of ice- the road was nearly clear six days after a snowfall- and went off the road. I was lucky not to get killed, as I flipped the VW short of trees and a stone wall.
I felt like a jerk, as my speeding when pissed off was the only reason for the accident. My father said nothing about the car- it was repaired- but was concerned only about my physical condition. I was expecting to get yelled at, even though my father very seldom yelled at us, as I thought I deserved it. No yelling- just, “are you OK?”
All he said was, “maybe you better not drive next week,” a rather gentle consequence.