Those of us who have, in some way, known our fathers have also, in some way been moved or touched or influenced by them. This influence may have been grand and filled with loving kindness or may have been the kind of presence in our lives we wish otherwise would not have happened. Looking back, and as is probably true for so many, my relationship, if it could actually bear that title, with my father was a complicated one. I knew him before I knew him. Which is to say, because of circumstances, my first true memory of my father begins at around the age of seven. Prior to that, I’d heard his voice on the phone many times and he had, indeed, returned from abroad and spent time with me – there are pictures as proof – but the visits I cannot remember. My knowledge of him came from all the stories, told and retold, out of the mouths of my family, some of the greatest stories tellers at whose feet I sat and listened. There is no doubt that my father’s life was drawn in two halves. His life prior to WWII and his life after WWII and the vast differences in his personality between these two epochs. There is also no doubt that he was keenly intelligent, had a gift for acquiring foreign languages as his own, was remarkably handsome, that women were drawn to him, that he possessed charm and was both worldly, sophisticated and considered a man’s kind of man. He developed an ability to swim for miles in ocean waters and cultivated precise diving abilities off high boards. His humor, even after WWII, could send people rolling to the floor in laughter and his depression occupied most of the last fifteen years of his life. Additionally, he was a hero of the war – decorated, repeatedly, for valor and bravery off any imaginable scale. Although there were peeks, for me, throughout our relationship, of who he had been, I never was able to know my father in the entirety of all his talent, charm, intelligence, kindness or compassion. The war, I believe, had drawn a line through his heart and it was difficult for him after 1946 to form relationships which were intimate, consistent and provided for his full presence even within his own family and, certainly, with his children. In my life; I never heard my father say he loved me. Even his cards were signed, “Your father, AGL.” For a long time, this was grief for me. For a number of years, I did everything I could conceive of to win his affection; to almost force a proclamation, out of his recognition of how well I served him, out of his mouth. It never happened. And, from early on, but prior to my understanding of WWII, PTSD, and all those men who returned home after four or five years interred in a kind of hell – most of us can neither imagine nor relate to; the influence of my father on my life was to make me feel as if I was, in some way, entirely unworthy. This, too, had a remarkable and far from positive effect on my relationship with men in general. From my late teens on, however, I began a journey through reading, talking, research, therapy and with an intent to accept what “was” with my father which transformed my grief. Through coming toward a compassionate acceptance and a stance of loving kindness both at the time and, now, in memory, my ability to love him became far more important than any words he could say confirming his love for me. Standing at his gravesite on General Patton Road at Arlington Cemetery in Washington D.C., honoring him as the war hero he’d been, remembering his ability to nail a Scottish accent at the turn of a hat, going back to our days in Korea – me in his lap late at night in his favorite red leather chair, considering the number of lives he had saved, envisioning him on the high dive platform at Jantzen Beach Park and the execution of a jackknife in to two perfect somersaults and splicing the water without making even the hint of a splash, I wept. My weeping was for both what had been and what had never been between us. In his inability, however, to give voice to whatever love he felt for me, and, I believe he did love me – he left me a gift. From that hot and sweltering afternoon day in Arlington, I moved forward, step by step, more slowly at times than I would have preferred in learning to express love – to try and never miss an opportunity to express in word and deed my gratitude, appreciation, and often times stunned observation of beauty revealed in another. Though I prefer to give voice to love, whenever possible; I have learned that love is offered to us in many ways – even if it is silent.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Jun 2013 19:39:08 +0000
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