It has been a long time since my last conversation with my father. I think about him often and memories of him surface at random moments in my life. Just the other day, I was walking along the harbor in San Diego looking at the various naval vessels cruising in and out of the bay. In a flash I was overwhelmed the memory of his voice. Had he been next to me in that moment, he wouldn’t have been able to control his urge to tell me all about each ship. The name, class, year it was likely commissioned, and how many men it took to sail, etc. This coming from a man who never served in the Navy due to a faulty spine damaged by childhood polio. Nonetheless, he grew up Navy as the son of two WWII Navy veterans.
Today, I’m a father with sons of my own. Oddly, I do not identify nor think of myself much as a father. Yet my time, commitments, and life revolve around my family and especially my boys. At the moment, we are together as a family, camped out of a hotel, on a three day trip for their sport. Many fathers I assume can relate, hours spent in some random Fairfield Inn room filled with laundry and leftover takeout containers. All of this for the baseball, soccer, basketball, or whatever tournament where other parents get to experience the ups and downs of their children’s athletic endeavors.
My dad never got to know my sons. I often wondered what he would think of their character and my efforts to parent them. I bet he would laugh at some of my tactics that were clearly passed on from his own unique style of parenting. Growing up, if my sisters or I ever did something that he did not approve of, he rarely became angry. Instead he often would launch into some story about our “older” siblings who “committed that act” and were never seen or heard from again. Though I’ve been tempted to guilt and create the same fear in my own kids, I lacked his stern poker face when telling outright lies.
My closeness with my dad had ups and downs like any paternal relationship. We were two males confined to a household dominated by intelligent, cunning, yet often unstable women. On many occasions, we would find each other wandering outside the house or hiding in the garage wondering when it might be safe to go back in. We also spent a lot of time together in the car traveling to and from various commutes that defined life in our rural area. I tolerated his music which tended to be the happy go lucky Motown and rock-a-billy stuff that grew tiresome after two songs. As a child in the 80’s, one can only take so many Beach Boys songs. As I grew older I found the courage to get him to move the dial away from the oldies to sports talk radio or on special occasion, classic rock.
Before long, I became a young adult and left for college. Our relationship matured and he would make the six hour drive every few months to visit. He’d buy me a nice dinner and we would spend the weekend at a baseball game or catch a movie at the local AMC. I worked for him in the summers and we managed to make time for one another when other sons might have chosen to avoid their fathers. Though we had each other’s phone numbers, i don’t recall many conversations in that medium, our talks were reserved for in person. These long form conversations often accompanied various “projects” like yard work or some home improvement job. I do not know what other sons talked to their fathers about, but dad and me chatted about life, relationships, work, philosophy, and the simple pleasures in life.
I distinctly remember the last time I we spent a “moment” like this together. I had picked him up from something in town and had planned to drive him back to his house. At the time my mother was very ill, and my sisters and I were together load managing the crisis. I was responsible for dad that day. I helped him into my car and I put on some music that reminded me of him. “California Dreaming” came on and he started to softly sing along, something he did often while driving. By now, my father was years into his dementia and we hadn’t had a real conversation in a very long time. I held his hand and we took the long way home with the windows down. I didn’t change the station.
I love my sons. I wonder if they think of me as much as I think of my dad. I hope someday we develop a similar bond and go on walks or do “projects” together while talking about life. I hope that I get to meet their spouses, sons and daughters. I hope that one day, a song comes on and they think of me.
Happy Father’s day dad, I miss you.
