Dad was large. And by large, I don’t necessarily mean he was a physically large man (we both fall a wee bit short of average in terms of height, and a wee bit more than average in terms of girth). But he had a large presence. No doubt he was a Type-A personality, and, at least within the context of a family, his personality had a tendency to dominate and overpower those of anyone around him. I don’t mean to couch this as if it were a bad thing – rather, it’s just how it was. For example, I have to truly say that I never really fully knew my mother, her true personality, the full extent of her likes and dislikes, until the years following Dad’s passing. She quite simply put much of that on the shelf while Dad was alive, and the fact that she did so, was willing and able to do so, is probably what made her such a good match for him. One could easily read a negative connotation into this arrangement, and I really don’t mean it that way. It’s simply how it was, and I figure Mom had her own reasons for acquiescing, however consciously or unconsciously, to such an emotional arrangement. This is not to say that Dad deliberately dominated her or marginalized her likes or preferences, his personality simply took up a lot of “space”, and Mom was willing to move aside and allow his personality to occupy that space it needed. As a result, Dad’s personality and temperament was more or less the personality and temperament of our entire family, with a few exceptions.
I won’t deign to speak for how this worked for my siblings, but for me, it kind of fit my own personality rather comfortably. I was never one to dominate a room. Personality-wise, I was always one to “pick my spots”. I preferred playing off of the larger, more dominant personalities of those around me, chiming in with a well-timed (hopefully) quip here, a cleverly-stated (again, hopefully) opinion there, ever content to be a complimentary counter-melody as opposed to being the main theme of the music. As a result, I, for the most part, got along very well with Dad. Don’t get me wrong, we had our moments. I had the same rebellious conflicts with him that most teenagers have with their parents. The only difference with me is that when I disagreed with Dad, or when he was laying down an edict that wasn’t to my liking, I would give due deference to him to his face, and then go about doing what I was going to do anyway. I just found it easier that way. I wasn’t much for open conflict and I didn’t see what good it did anyway. For the most part, I could largely get away with doing whatever I wanted to do (provided it wasn’t anything too scandalous – which was hardly ever the case), as long as I paid my due respects to Dad to his face. Deceptive? Sure. But it worked, and kept us from constantly being at each other’s throats which I saw as being destructive and unnecessary. And I really don’t think it was a matter of Dad being too stupid to see what I was doing. I think his ability or willingness to condone my duplicity was partly his appreciation of my willingness to show him proper respect, and partly due to his understanding, on some level, that half of growing up is being a fuck-up, and he was willing to let me have some space and learn from my own mistakes. It had to be one of the most gratifying experiences of his life to hear me, in my early twenties, admit to him on several occasions that he had been right about something he had tried to explain to me in my teens. I just didn’t have the necessary experience at the time he was telling me to fully realize that truth of what he was saying.
Anyhow, that was the basic dynamic between myself and Dad while growing up, and the basic gist of the role he played in our larger family. Now what follows is going to largely focus on the many virtues Dad had and the incredibly positive things he brought to my life and to our family. Before I dive into that end of the pool though, I have to give a necessary disclaimer. Dad was no saint, and he was not without some very deep and problematic flaws. However, I’m not going to spend any time airing the details of that kind of dirty laundry. Every single one of us carries around our own set of flaws, some of them significant, and it is not the part of somebody else to expose them for others to see. If Dad were here now, I believe he would be the first to admit to how deeply flawed a person he really was, and then it would be up to him to decide how many details he wanted to share. Unfortunately, we don’t have the benefit of his presence to allow such a conversation to occur. And, in my mind, that’s kind of immaterial to the point I want to make anyway. I want to convey a general sense of how I remember him, and to be honest, I almost always remember him for his virtues and so rarely remember him for his flaws. I don’t know if that’s more a testament to the power of his virtues than it is the overall redeeming power of love in general, and love’s general ability to minimize the flaws in everyone. So while I’m more than willing to readily admit that Dad was a flawed man, I will always remember him as a man that brought so many positives to my life.
So what were some of these positives? In many ways, Dad was an anachronism, even for the time period in which he lived and worked. Dad did not believe in buying anything on credit. His philosophy on that, which he inherited from his own father, was that if you didn’t have the money for it, you didn’t need it, and if you did need it you would put forth the necessary effort, time and discipline to save for it. By today’s standards, such a philosophy sounds Pollyanna-ish in its naiveté. Who in this day and age has the time to save enough money for a house until they can buy it outright? Not many people, unless you’re willing rent into your fifties before you buy your first home. But for him and the time period he grew up in, it worked. My Dad paid cash for everything and the closest thing he ever came to taking out a major loan was when he borrowed a couple thousand dollars from his own father so he could build a house, and then he ended up paying him back in cash within a few years. But my father (and his father before him) could do that. They could build their own houses. They could fix their own cars and make their own household repairs. There was so very little that they actually had to hire someone to do on their behalf. As a result, they could do things much more cheaply than most other folks, and their penchant for avoiding credit on everything else (my parents didn’t even have a credit card until the late 80s), meant that by the time he was in his late thirties, he owned the full worth of every house he had ever lived in (at appreciated values) and possessed virtually zero debt. So while he didn’t possess levels of wealth that would necessarily be considered “rich”, he had an obscenely high spending ability compared with what he owned. And for a man with humble tastes and virtually no expensive habits, this means he might as well have been rich. Want a new metal roof for the house? Pay cash. Want that new digital satellite service you’ve been hearing about? He could easily afford it. By this point in his life, with little in the way of expenses beyond groceries and utilities, this meant that if he want or needed something, he could pretty much buy it outright.
Having just typed out the above, I can easily see how my Dad could be the object of envy and jealousy. Hell, I’m jealous and I’m his son. I have nowhere near the buying power my Dad had at the same age (unfortunately I didn’t share his natural aversion to credit). But you would never know it by looking at him. He kept humble, but nice, tastes. Our home was very nice and in good repair, but modest in terms of size and design. And while he liked nice vehicles, they were hardly of the luxury class. A practical sedan like a Honda and a dependable pick-up truck were all he needed. In his dress, at least during his later years, he would probably be considered slovenly by most standards, though he was known to dress nicely in his younger days when social engagements were a larger part of his everyday life.
So that was my Dad. A “rich little poor man”, so to speak. And this meant a lot to me, not because of the accessible “wealth”, but because of the sense of security this enabled him to give us. Never once in my life do I remember a bill collector or creditor making a call or visit to our house. Bills were paid within a day of hitting our mailbox. If a new TV or appliance showed up at our house, it wasn’t bought on a whim but because we genuinely needed it, and I knew it was paid in full by the time it came through the door. And when the inevitable “disasters” in life hit – either one of us kids fucking up and wrecking a car or a furnace breaking or a storm damaging the house, I knew that the insurance was paid and would take care of it, or that we had the money stored away to cover the expense (what he took out of our hides in way of punishment was another story). Never once did I have to fear for food being on the table or a roof being over our head or wheels being in the driveway because some unforeseen expense had been visited upon the family. The financial security he brought to the family was so complete that I took it completely for granted growing up. I couldn’t demand a Camaro for my sixteenth birthday like some kids I knew, but I knew when I got my license that there would be a vehicle available for my exclusive use, and that was a whole lot more than most kids I knew could expect.
But the security my Dad provided was so much more than financial. My Dad also provided us with a great deal of physical and emotional security, and was decidedly old school in those areas as well. My Dad had grown up fighting on the industry-lined streets of Delaware County, PA, and was a combat veteran of the Vietnam War. So he knew how to handle himself in a scrape and had actual, bona fide experience in life-or-death situations involving deadly weapons. I never feared for someone coming through our front door in the middle of the night or approaching us in the streets with diabolical intentions when Dad was around. And while Dad was not one for overly expressive displays of his love and affection for us as we got older (hugs for my sisters was about as emotive as he got), he lavished so much of it upon us when we were small children that there was never, ever really any doubt about where we stood with him in that regard. Plus, as I indicated somewhat above, his love really showed through in his actions. He was a provider and a protector. Even though my older years were not replete with, “I love you’s”, in every other sense of the phrase, he “walked the walk”, and that more than made up for it for me.
One positive trait he had that didn’t become clear to me until rather late in my own life is the fact that he never allowed himself to look worried or scared in front of us children. Whatever tense discussions he may have had with Mom, whatever handwringing he may have indulged in as he dealt with the latest life-crisis visited upon us, occurred behind closed doors - out of sight and out of ear-shot. Having finally dealt with a few life-crises myself as the father of a small child, I only now truly appreciate what a gift that was to us. Nothing instills fear in a child’s heart more than to see their father and/or mother, the very foundations of their world, scared, upset or hesitant in dealing with problems that threaten family security. Dad’s ability to screen that from us was so complete that I honestly thought the man never panicked or worried about anything. It’s only now that I realize how scared or unsure of himself he had to have been at several junctures, and how thoroughly difficult it must have been for him to hide those emotions from us. But he did, and as a result of that sacrifice, I had a childhood as free from stress and anxiety (at least about monumental things) as was probably possible. To this day I get angry and upset when I see adults crying and carrying on in front of their children.
Shortly before my own daughter was born my wife and I indulged in the usual ritual of researching baby names, their meanings and variation. Of course, a normal part of that process is looking up the meaning of your own name which, in my case, was a name I shared with my father – Edward.
If I remember the details correctly, the name “Edward” in Latin means “benevolent protector”, or, “a kindly presence who guards others from harm”. While I know that my dad’s own father wouldn’t have bothered looking up the meaning of the name he affixed it to Dad, he couldn’t have chosen a better moniker. Dad truly was, in every way, shape and form, a protective presence in my life.
So where does that leave me all this time later and eight years beyond my last goodbye to him?
I haven’t slept in late since he passed.
Those who knew me from my younger days knew I loved to sleep, and would sleep straight through until Noon when I could get away with it.
Nowadays, my eyes begin to blink open as soon as the barest hint of sunlight begins creeping in the window. By the time the sun is up, if I’m still in bed, I’m faking it. I simply cannot sleep any later than sunrise.
Why?
The security is gone.
Once I became an adult and struck out on my own with a wife and, eventually, a daughter, I made a point of being as self-sufficient as I could be. I didn’t rely on Dad and his ready access to cash to supplement my life or defray the cost of making it in this harsh and sometimes very expensive world.
But I knew it was there. And I knew he would let me have it if the shit hit the fan hard enough and the need warranted it.
I also knew I could count on him emotionally, though, as I said above, we were hardly emotive with each other. While I never really struck out to be this way, I found that, as I got older and outgrew the youthful exuberance of my twenties, my friends (at least the type I see on a regular basis), dwindled dramatically. I became much more family-focused, not only on my own burgeoning family, but my relationship with my parents. In addition to being my father, Dad became a wise, experienced and trusted friend I could share things with and pick his brain about how to address problems in my own life.
That’s gone as well. And I haven’t opened up to anyone else near as much since.
There is, and continues to be, a big void in my life that my father used to occupy, and nothing has ever really come close to taking up that space again.
I love my mother and know she loves me. And, further, I knew that if I ever really needed her support, financially or otherwise, she would be there for me as much as possible.
But she’s just a different type of presence. I guess it’s natural for a son to look at his mother, especially as she gets older and is now without her own husband, as something to be protected as opposed to being a supporting presence in her own right.
In the meantime, I love my own wife and child, and share things with them I would never share with another human being on this planet. But, again, it’s a different kind of relationship. While I can draw energy from their love and their emotional support (which is significant), I am now the “benevolent protector” for them. I’m the one who needs to appear confident and non-plussed in a crisis. I’m the one who needs to find the strength and wherewithal, whether it be physically, emotionally or financially, to steer our way through the inevitable crises that life brings.
And it’s an honor to do so. If there’s one thing I can do to honor Dad’s memory, it’s to take as seriously as possible that sacred duty he performed so well for us, to be a steadying presence, a bulwark against the storm and the guy who knows how to sail through it to safety.
And that’s the reason I can’t sleep in late. When I was young, it was Dad doing all that, so I could sleep in and let daylight burn. Nothing urgent required my attention and I could bask in the security he provided.
Now, the daylight creeps in under my eyelids and within seconds of hitting the window, and I’m immediately hyperaware of the problems, extant and potential, probable or merely hypothetical, that threaten and stir along that distant horizon.
And so, in Dad’s memory, and in honor of his example, I get up and meet them, casting a shadow for my family to hopefully sleep in and remain blissfully unaware of the thunder in the distance.
It’s funny, I always thought Dad got up so early simply because he liked it. And I think he did on some level, though I know now that a big part of it was to simply be up and be aware. What’s coming over that horizon along with the sun? What do I have to plan for? What do I have to be ready for? Do I have enough to address it or do I have more work to do? Is there more preparation to be done?
For the sun is not the only thing that comes over that horizon. And that’s the secret he knew and that I now know. The secret he kept from us when I was young. It’s a secret handed from father to son as a secret to be kept from their own families. Not as an act of deception, but as an act of love.
As an act of grace.
I still miss you Dad.
Happy Father’s Day to
all the fathers out there – and a special shout out to those who have lost
their fathers recently – I know of at least a few personally. I share your pain.
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