My Father's Daughter
Who we are, is at least to some degree, attributable to those people who are influential in our lives whether that is our parents, our siblings, our grandparents or aunts and uncles, etc. When I look at who I am, I know that I can look to my father and give some credit (or blame) for a number of things about who I am and how I think:
1) An inherent distrust of the government. My father was a registered Democrat (but he knew there were devils in the Democrats as well) and he served his country in Korea, but he viewed the government as sort of a necessary evil. As something that should be questioned and challenged. He was not one to believe in blind faith or taking things at face value (this applied to more than the government). Yes, he knew that we had it lucky in this country, but that didn't mean that he believed that the government always looked out for the best interest of the people. He thought the government had given themselves too much power (especially the IRS) and that we would be best served by watching our back.
2) A rather warped sense of humor. I think that one of the reasons I've always been a fan of The Far Side or other slightly off center humor is directly tied to my father and the things that he thought were funny (these were not necessarily things that other people thought of as funny). When I was 17, Daddy sent me to the basement to get something. This DID NOT make me happy. Since childhood I had been terrified of the basement (and it still gives me a bit of the creeps). My fear was exploited and greatly intensified by my older brother locking me in the basement after we watched a horror movie (which I really shouldn't have been watching at such a tender age). My father KNEW that I was terrified of the basement and that I would go to greater lengths to avoid having to go into what I consider the depths of hell. I tried, in vain, to convince him that he didn't really need whatever he was asking for (I don't even remember what he wanted). So down I got into the pit of darkness and what do I find (yes, what he sent me for) but a canary yellow Ford Mustang. Of course, I run back upstairs to interrogate my father with, "Is it mine? Is it for me?" I was dying because of course I'd been hoping for a car and I was 17 years old and not having a car was killing me. He refused to answer me....for two weeks! I quizzed him daily, almost non-stop. I was so excited, I just couldn't wait for him to finally tell me that, yes, the car was mine. If you recall how exciting it was to get your first car, you can imagine how I was feeling! I was on pins and needles, feeling like I could just burst out of my skin. After two weeks one of my father's friends came to get the car he'd bought for his granddaughter! I was crushed and my father got a great laugh at my expense. (For the record, I ended up with a 1979 Chevrolet Malibu Classic Station wagon (oh joy) that I named Sherman to protest its size.)
3) Being stubborn. In all fairness, I got a double whammy on this one as both my parents were possessed with a peculiarly strange breed of stubborn stubborness. I can be quite stubborn about things if I feel strongly about it.
4) Stand up for what you believe in. You should pick your causes and your battles, but once you did, you were in it for the long haul. What you believed in was a vital extension of who you are and it should be fought for and protected.
5) How to play mind games with other drivers and force them off the road without ever touching their vehicle. For the record, I've never done this, but it might come in handy one day. It was a little something that my father picked up from a guy during the "union wars". While my father's love for the union waned as he saw them being corrupted by politics and other ills, there was a time when he was a firm advocate for unions and what they could do to help improve employee conditions. He was actually fired for trying to get a union started where he worked (and eventually rehired).
6) Holding a grudge. Yep, I have this in spades (check out my Know Thyself?? post and the entries about the girl in the second grade who stole my pencils). But my father could carry a grudge like no one else. In high school, there was a guy who was interested in me and the feeling was mutual. But my father had a long-standing grudge against someone in the guy's family and refused to let him in the house. So we would stand or sit on the front porch in the freezing cold....maybe if it had been the fall or spring, this would have lasted longer.
7) Extreme solutions. Not always, not even usually, but sometimes. My brother is similarly afflicted (he got my mother to finally make out a will by threatening to burn the house down rather than let the state have it). I was having trouble getting the dealer I had bought a vehicle from to correct some things that needed correcting. So I threatened to take the vehicle back and set it on fire in the dealer's lot. My mother called my brother and said that he'd better help me because I was acting like my father! I don't think that I actually would have set the truck on fire, at the dealer's or anywhere else, but it sounded like a good idea at the moment that I said it. (But I have no doubt my brother would have burned the house down.)
8) God isn't only in church, he's everywhere. Daddy believed in God, but he didn't believe that politics belonged in the church. I've always been a little unclear about exactly what happened, but it pissed him off enough that he never darkened the door of church again. But that didn't change his faith or keep him from passing it on to us. He didn't mind if we went and in fact, encouraged it in his own way, but his mind was made up (remember: stubborn, ability to hold a grudge).
9) Temper, Temper, Temper. My temper isn't nearly as bad as it used to be (years in customer service has taught me how to manage it better), but if I ever lose it, you might as well evacuate the area. The walls are going to shake and the paint is going to peel. My father was a road rager far before anyone coined the term. You did NOT want to pull out in front of that man and cause him to have to slam on his brakes. There was one time that I am still quite convinced that if me and mother hadn't been in the car, he would have just plowed this guy over. But that guy probably still has nightmares about the guy who came after him like a bat out of hell, lights flashing and tailgating way too close for comfort. I have a couple of road rage stories myself, but we'll leave those for another day.
Oh, there are plenty more and some that are probably more important than these, but these are what came to me. And I know that as I've grown older and learned more about our family, that the way I see him now is different than the way that I saw him when I was a kid and the many ways that he could have turned out a different person (both better and worse).
When my father was about 5 or 6 years old, he lost his younger brother (he died just short of his second birthday). My grandmother said that it was the defining moment in his life and that the person he was after was completely different than the person he was before. Before, he had been a very loving and affectionate kid, always full of hugs and I love you's. After that, he didn't hug anymore and there were no more I love you's. I've wondered if he ever told my mother, because he never said those words to his children. It's not that I believe that he didn't love us, but it would have been nice to have heard-just once.
Losing his brother also made my father want to never lose another person that he loved. So on June 12, 1989, my father got up, got ready, went to the kitchen, looked out the windows to check for rabbits or other creatures that would cause the dog to go nuts when he took him out, and got his wish of not outliving any of those people he that loved. He cut his head on the kitchen table when he fell, but the doctor's said he never felt it because he died immediately of massive heart trauma. I still remember that day with a clarity that is eerie. My brother had recently moved back home and was working third shift. He came home shortly after 7:00AM to find my father on the kitchen floor. He went to get my mother. I had been out late the night before and I recall hearing someone running through the house and shot up in the bed. I was completely awake, you know the way you get when something scares you awake. My heart was pounding and my first thought was that the house was on fire. And then a sudden calm came over me and I thought, "If the house is on fire, they'll come get me" and went straight back to sleep. I think God knew that I couldn't face seeing my father dead on the floor that morning and spared me that grief. I wasn't awakened again until after the ambulance had come and gone. But he got his wish..he left behind his wife, his children, his parents, his sister and a dear great aunt. We would all outlive him, which is exactly what he wanted...to never lose another person he loved whether or not he could tell us how he felt.
Intellectually, you know that your parents are not going to be around forever. Emotionally, I'm not sure we're ever prepared and I wasn't ready for him to go so soon. I was a late baby for my parents and he was only 56.
There are times when it seems so long ago, that it doesn't seem quite real. And there are other times when the wound seems so fresh that I could just break down into tears as if someone had just told me that my Daddy was gone. I don't visit his grave that often, because I know that he isn't there and somehow I know that when I talk to him, that if he can hear me, he can hear me from wherever I am and that standing over his grave isn't going to make the reception any better. And I believe that he would be okay with that. He dearly loved and missed his baby brother, but I don't recall one time that he went to visit his grave. Like me, he knew that those that are gone are never really gone as long as we keep them with us.
And for good or bad, I know that I am, and I'm proud to be, my father's daughter.
1) An inherent distrust of the government. My father was a registered Democrat (but he knew there were devils in the Democrats as well) and he served his country in Korea, but he viewed the government as sort of a necessary evil. As something that should be questioned and challenged. He was not one to believe in blind faith or taking things at face value (this applied to more than the government). Yes, he knew that we had it lucky in this country, but that didn't mean that he believed that the government always looked out for the best interest of the people. He thought the government had given themselves too much power (especially the IRS) and that we would be best served by watching our back.
2) A rather warped sense of humor. I think that one of the reasons I've always been a fan of The Far Side or other slightly off center humor is directly tied to my father and the things that he thought were funny (these were not necessarily things that other people thought of as funny). When I was 17, Daddy sent me to the basement to get something. This DID NOT make me happy. Since childhood I had been terrified of the basement (and it still gives me a bit of the creeps). My fear was exploited and greatly intensified by my older brother locking me in the basement after we watched a horror movie (which I really shouldn't have been watching at such a tender age). My father KNEW that I was terrified of the basement and that I would go to greater lengths to avoid having to go into what I consider the depths of hell. I tried, in vain, to convince him that he didn't really need whatever he was asking for (I don't even remember what he wanted). So down I got into the pit of darkness and what do I find (yes, what he sent me for) but a canary yellow Ford Mustang. Of course, I run back upstairs to interrogate my father with, "Is it mine? Is it for me?" I was dying because of course I'd been hoping for a car and I was 17 years old and not having a car was killing me. He refused to answer me....for two weeks! I quizzed him daily, almost non-stop. I was so excited, I just couldn't wait for him to finally tell me that, yes, the car was mine. If you recall how exciting it was to get your first car, you can imagine how I was feeling! I was on pins and needles, feeling like I could just burst out of my skin. After two weeks one of my father's friends came to get the car he'd bought for his granddaughter! I was crushed and my father got a great laugh at my expense. (For the record, I ended up with a 1979 Chevrolet Malibu Classic Station wagon (oh joy) that I named Sherman to protest its size.)
3) Being stubborn. In all fairness, I got a double whammy on this one as both my parents were possessed with a peculiarly strange breed of stubborn stubborness. I can be quite stubborn about things if I feel strongly about it.
4) Stand up for what you believe in. You should pick your causes and your battles, but once you did, you were in it for the long haul. What you believed in was a vital extension of who you are and it should be fought for and protected.
5) How to play mind games with other drivers and force them off the road without ever touching their vehicle. For the record, I've never done this, but it might come in handy one day. It was a little something that my father picked up from a guy during the "union wars". While my father's love for the union waned as he saw them being corrupted by politics and other ills, there was a time when he was a firm advocate for unions and what they could do to help improve employee conditions. He was actually fired for trying to get a union started where he worked (and eventually rehired).
6) Holding a grudge. Yep, I have this in spades (check out my Know Thyself?? post and the entries about the girl in the second grade who stole my pencils). But my father could carry a grudge like no one else. In high school, there was a guy who was interested in me and the feeling was mutual. But my father had a long-standing grudge against someone in the guy's family and refused to let him in the house. So we would stand or sit on the front porch in the freezing cold....maybe if it had been the fall or spring, this would have lasted longer.
7) Extreme solutions. Not always, not even usually, but sometimes. My brother is similarly afflicted (he got my mother to finally make out a will by threatening to burn the house down rather than let the state have it). I was having trouble getting the dealer I had bought a vehicle from to correct some things that needed correcting. So I threatened to take the vehicle back and set it on fire in the dealer's lot. My mother called my brother and said that he'd better help me because I was acting like my father! I don't think that I actually would have set the truck on fire, at the dealer's or anywhere else, but it sounded like a good idea at the moment that I said it. (But I have no doubt my brother would have burned the house down.)
8) God isn't only in church, he's everywhere. Daddy believed in God, but he didn't believe that politics belonged in the church. I've always been a little unclear about exactly what happened, but it pissed him off enough that he never darkened the door of church again. But that didn't change his faith or keep him from passing it on to us. He didn't mind if we went and in fact, encouraged it in his own way, but his mind was made up (remember: stubborn, ability to hold a grudge).
9) Temper, Temper, Temper. My temper isn't nearly as bad as it used to be (years in customer service has taught me how to manage it better), but if I ever lose it, you might as well evacuate the area. The walls are going to shake and the paint is going to peel. My father was a road rager far before anyone coined the term. You did NOT want to pull out in front of that man and cause him to have to slam on his brakes. There was one time that I am still quite convinced that if me and mother hadn't been in the car, he would have just plowed this guy over. But that guy probably still has nightmares about the guy who came after him like a bat out of hell, lights flashing and tailgating way too close for comfort. I have a couple of road rage stories myself, but we'll leave those for another day.
Oh, there are plenty more and some that are probably more important than these, but these are what came to me. And I know that as I've grown older and learned more about our family, that the way I see him now is different than the way that I saw him when I was a kid and the many ways that he could have turned out a different person (both better and worse).
When my father was about 5 or 6 years old, he lost his younger brother (he died just short of his second birthday). My grandmother said that it was the defining moment in his life and that the person he was after was completely different than the person he was before. Before, he had been a very loving and affectionate kid, always full of hugs and I love you's. After that, he didn't hug anymore and there were no more I love you's. I've wondered if he ever told my mother, because he never said those words to his children. It's not that I believe that he didn't love us, but it would have been nice to have heard-just once.
Losing his brother also made my father want to never lose another person that he loved. So on June 12, 1989, my father got up, got ready, went to the kitchen, looked out the windows to check for rabbits or other creatures that would cause the dog to go nuts when he took him out, and got his wish of not outliving any of those people he that loved. He cut his head on the kitchen table when he fell, but the doctor's said he never felt it because he died immediately of massive heart trauma. I still remember that day with a clarity that is eerie. My brother had recently moved back home and was working third shift. He came home shortly after 7:00AM to find my father on the kitchen floor. He went to get my mother. I had been out late the night before and I recall hearing someone running through the house and shot up in the bed. I was completely awake, you know the way you get when something scares you awake. My heart was pounding and my first thought was that the house was on fire. And then a sudden calm came over me and I thought, "If the house is on fire, they'll come get me" and went straight back to sleep. I think God knew that I couldn't face seeing my father dead on the floor that morning and spared me that grief. I wasn't awakened again until after the ambulance had come and gone. But he got his wish..he left behind his wife, his children, his parents, his sister and a dear great aunt. We would all outlive him, which is exactly what he wanted...to never lose another person he loved whether or not he could tell us how he felt.
Intellectually, you know that your parents are not going to be around forever. Emotionally, I'm not sure we're ever prepared and I wasn't ready for him to go so soon. I was a late baby for my parents and he was only 56.
There are times when it seems so long ago, that it doesn't seem quite real. And there are other times when the wound seems so fresh that I could just break down into tears as if someone had just told me that my Daddy was gone. I don't visit his grave that often, because I know that he isn't there and somehow I know that when I talk to him, that if he can hear me, he can hear me from wherever I am and that standing over his grave isn't going to make the reception any better. And I believe that he would be okay with that. He dearly loved and missed his baby brother, but I don't recall one time that he went to visit his grave. Like me, he knew that those that are gone are never really gone as long as we keep them with us.
And for good or bad, I know that I am, and I'm proud to be, my father's daughter.
posted by Hope at 12:04 PM
7 Comments:
Hi Hope
I'm sure glad you are your fathers daughter. Is he where you get your wonderful poetic ability from? As far as #2 goes, lmao (god that was mean). I get my warped sense of humor from my mother, she was one for practical jokes...but thats a blog for another day...
No one seems to know where my creative side came from. Both my parents fell into the category of practical, down-to-earth, no frills type of people. However, my father was very supportive of it and helped me my buy my first new typewriter (which I still kind of miss--it had good sound). #2 was one of his prouder moments in the comedy department (at least as far as he was concerned).
Very touching. You made me teary eyed. I had never heard the story about the Mustang, at least I don't think so.... It has always been evident to me how much you loved and cared for and miss your father - this just proved it even more :) Love you girl!!
I can't believe that I've never told you the "Mustang" story--its a classic......Love ya back!
I am very different from my father. He is very practical with his hands, creates things sometimes out of nothing. We share nothing there.
I hope I learnt the important stuff from mine, like how to conduct myself as a man and a father. I worry that I haven't.
I'm glad you felt so close to yours, and knew him so well.
I had forgotten the mustang story. That made me laugh again, but I know at the time it was far from funny.
blackcrag: The older I get the more I realized that I did learn from mine. And as my perspective changes, I realize that I knew him better than I ever thought I did.
mtnbiker: Should I live to be 103, I don't think I'll ever forget it. And you're right...it was about 180 degrees from funny at the time!
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